


The Progenitor Chronicles

by inserthedgehog



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Universe, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, During Canon, F/M, Post-Canon, TV Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 58,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23512255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inserthedgehog/pseuds/inserthedgehog
Summary: In July 1998, Rebecca Chambers learned two things: Umbrella had unleashed a horrific, mutagenic virus upon the world; and she wasn’t suited for full-scale combat like were her STARS compatriots. Since then, she’s struggled to fight the Progenitor Virus with her greatest trait – her intellect. Piece by piece, virus by virus, she was going to eliminate this nightmare for good.In July 1998, an unassuming young intern at Raccoon University met the 18-year-old sole survivor of STARS Bravo Team. Two things would define his life from then on: the constant global threat of bioweapons through his maturing years and his dream of finally growing up to help Rebecca release the world from the grip of bioterror.The Progenitor Chronicles tells their story – because sometimes, fighting off a biohazard involves more than badasses with guns.
Relationships: Rebecca Chambers/Original Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Survival

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my Resident Evil fanfiction. I wanted to write down a few notes on the structure of the story you’re (hopefully) about to read and on what I tried to do when composing it. I guess you’ll be the judge on whether I did it well.
> 
> The story is told in first-person and alternates perspectives between 2 protagonists. Chapter 1 is the main character (MC), Chapter 2 is Rebecca Chambers, Chapter 3 returns to the MC, Chapter 4 returns to Rebecca, etc. It covers a timeframe from July 1998, right after the events of Resident Evil 1, to 2016, a few years after the events of Resident Evil 6. I’ve written this story as a pseudo-canonical fanfiction, meaning I want this to be as compatible with canon as possible. As for what constitutes “canon,” I’ve based it on all the numbered Resident Evil games (minus 7 – I’ll explain why later), Code Veronica, and the 2 Revelations games. I’m ignoring everything else to keep things simple. In particular, I’m ignoring the CG movies. While I have nothing against the first two, I don’t feel they add a lot to the lore and given that I’m already covering almost 20 years’ worth of in-universe events, I thought omitting them was prudent. In contrast, I absolutely despise the third movie, Vendetta, so I have a more active reason to omit that one. That said, there are 2 things in Vendetta I like: Rebecca being a scientist rather than a full-time combatant and some minor aspects of her personality/dialogue, so I did use those concepts.
> 
> I had 3 goals in mind when writing this story. First, a pseudo-canonical fanfiction doesn’t mean I want to novelize the in-game events. I don’t want to, say, write about the events of Resident Evil 3 from Jill Valentine’s perspective. There are novelizations like that by actual authors and, even beyond those, fans of the series who’ve played Resident Evil 3 will already have experienced it from Jill’s perspective. So instead, I wanted to explore the reaction of a main series character (Rebecca) to the major canonical events that she wasn’t directly involved in. To give an example: there’s a chapter where Chris calls the remaining STARS members to a gathering after the events of Code Veronica. He wants to inform them that Wesker is alive (something he discovers in Code Veronica) and to plan their next move – a very important course of action given how dangerous Wesker is on both a general and personal level to them all. This is one reason Rebecca’s a main character. She’s a protagonist from the games, but she isn’t directly involved in any event past Resident Evil 1.
> 
> The second goal is to write a completely regular and everyday character to explore the world of Resident Evil. What does it look like to live in this world when you’re not an action hero actively fighting monsters? That’s where the MC comes in. I’ll admit he’s very heavily based on me and that’s actually the main reason I never name him, as I don’t want to use my real name and I am bad at coming up with names for fictional characters that appeal to me. At any rate, we see things like the Raccoon Trials from the MC’s perspective – an everyday citizen reading the news. What does the general public look like when considering this massive, secretive judicial process involving the complete destruction of a city?
> 
> The first time the MC directly encounters bioweapons (Hunters) is in Terragrigia. He’s on vacation there with his friends with the Panic begins. The MC is no fighter and he’s unarmed. What does that look like? In-game, we see characters caught in bioterror/biohazard outbreaks, but they’re always versed in combat or at least armed. What does a layperson do in this situation?
> 
> Finally, my third goal is to wrap up what I consider to be the first main Resident Evil plot arc – the various pathogens descendant from Progenitor. You’ll recall I specifically omitted Resident Evil 7. I have nothing against the game, and, in fact, I like that it’s a soft reboot. I think the series needs a new plot arc with new characters; otherwise, you get something like Resident Evil 6, where we have extremely experienced protagonists fighting yet another virus related to the previous viruses. That’ll get repetitive. But a soft reboot means we have a few unresolved plot points, such as the Family from Resident Evil 6, Jessica Sherawat and Raymond Vester from Revelations 1, and Alex Wesker/Natalia Korda from Revelations 2. In the latter part of my story, I tried to wrap those plot points up. I hope that the future of the series features a new cast fighting a new enemy.
> 
> And that’s about it. I had a lot of fun writing this thing and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it just as much. Please feel free to leave comments and critiques. So without further ado I present…

**Part 1 (MC): A Midsummer Morning’s Dream, July 1998**

As I ran, my surroundings warped and morphed in dizzying ways. A train, luxurious and beautiful and ferrying the doomed to hell. A mansion, alight with angry flame, bright against the dark of night. A museum, displaying ancient and forgotten relics of order. A clock tower, tolling the end of death and the beginning of life. An ornate, valuable mask, changing from male to female to horror. A beacon of darkness, guiding the faithful with ignorance. The sun’s light shining from the depths of the ocean. A boulder. A pregnant woman giving birth to fear. And in the end…a family, together, where all its members were the same broken man.

I was out of breath by then. I stopped, and heard a soft feminine voice: “These are your first steps.”

A shrill alarm drew my attention. My surroundings began to warp again, but this time they receded, faded…and my eyes flew open as I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing. Still groggy, I stumbled out of bed and answered the phone. It was Professor Elvira Maple, who ran the lab at Raccoon University I was doing a summer internship in.

“I know it’s Saturday, but are you free? We have somewhat of a situation here and I could use as many hands as I can get.”

“Sure, Professor. I’ll be right in.”

I showered, got dressed, and walked across campus toward the biotechnology building. It was pretty early in the day, but it was already getting warm – typical July weather, I supposed. I wondered what Professor Maple was referring to when she said they had a situation; my internship had been uneventful, if not interesting and enlightening. Raccoon City was a pretty quiet town, after all.

I entered the biotechnology building and headed down the hall. As I rounded the corner into the lab, I saw just about the entire lab’s personnel had also reported in. I found the professor and walked over.

“Oh, good. We could use another pair of hands. I want you to gown up. Completely. Then go to the test room and replace all the bench liners. Start preparing gauze and tubes of sterile saline. Make sure the 70% ethanol bottles are full – and also take out 2 full bottles of Betadine.”

She seemed more serious than usual. Something big had happened. I nodded and turned to begin carrying out the tasks when she stopped me.

“One more thing – leave one bench completely clear except for the new lining. We’re going to be bringing in equipment and clothing potentially contaminated with a pathogen, so we need to leave an area to keep them while we prepare them for analysis.”

“Got it,” I said, and began my preparations. When I had finished, I returned to the main lab. A teenage girl had arrived – someone I didn’t recognize. She seemed exhausted and disheveled. Her clothes looked incredibly dirty, but on her shoulders, I could still make out the emblem for the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad. She wore mostly green save for a white, lightly armored vest. Despite her appearance, I thought she looked…well, beautiful. I had a strange, unexplained urge to approach her and ask her whether she were an angel.

Of course, I didn’t do that, and the professor noticed me and walked over. “Is the room prepped?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“Good. I have another task for you. Go to the equipment room downstairs and bring back a set of small scrubs. We’re going to be analyzing Rebecca’s clothes and equipment and she’s going to need something to wear.”

The girl’s name was Rebecca? Okay. I slipped out of the lab, took off my personal protective equipment, and went downstairs. It dawned on me as I was picking out the scrubs that the latest graduate from the lab, Rebecca Chambers, had joined the special forces in the Raccoon Police Department right after she graduated from college. Was that her? I guessed they’d sent her on some sort of dangerous mission or something. I often wondered why Raccoon City, a relatively isolated place, would need special forces in its police force, but based on that girl’s appearance back in the lab, maybe it was warranted.

Returning to the lab, I re-gowned and reported back to the professor. The new girl was no longer there, but Professor Maple told me she’d relocated into the test room. I gave her the scrubs and she told me to wait outside before she also disappeared into the test room.

“So…what’s this all about?” I took the opportunity to ask the idle graduate students.

“Rebecca called Elvira this morning and said she just got back from a mission. Apparently STARS ran into a mansion in the mountains infected with a virus. Rebecca says the virus isn’t airborne, so we’re just making sure the lab’s covered up.”

“…What if she’s wrong? Shouldn’t we be wearing masks or something?”

“She seemed pretty confident. Besides, she’s not often wrong,” was the chuckling response. “You’ve never met her, right? She graduated before you came.”

So the new girl _was_ Rebecca Chambers. “Yeah,” I answered. “So…if STARS all went to this infected mansion, why is she the only one here? Shouldn’t a bunch of other STARS members also be here?”

The graduate students collectively shrugged. Presently the professor returned with Miss Chambers, now in scrubs. She pointed to me. “Go in and start taking samples with the gauze and saline. Make sure you double-glove first. After you’re done, use the ethanol and iodine to decontaminate the equipment and clothes as best you can. The rest of you, start preparing for PCR and blotting. I want all three blots.”

We all dispersed. I put on another pair of gloves and entered the test room. Miss Chambers’s things were all laid out on the empty bench I’d cleaned off and I went to work swabbing and placing samples in the saline tubes. A shiver traveled through my body as I picked up her left boot with her sock stuffed into it, but I shook my head and swabbed three samples around different parts of the boot and repeated with the right boot. Her socks followed and, after I’d finished swabbing her socks, I started on the disinfection. I prepared some gauze and began to clean the outside of her boots with Betadine, followed by ethanol.

I did my best to focus. I had to do a good job. It seemed important – more so than the mundane tasks I normally did everyday in lab. I had to be thorough…even though I didn’t have the sort of advanced knowledge the others did, even I knew how dangerous an infectious virus was.

It would end up being a long Saturday as I labored on in solitude. But I didn’t really mind.

**Part 2 (Rebecca): Parting Ways, August 1998**

Professor Maple placed the cup of coffee down in front of me and returned to her seat. I gratefully took a sip and slightly relaxed.

“According to the assays, the virus doesn’t seem to match any characteristics of airborne pathogens. It had no discernible effect on lung or nasal cells. It very quickly destroyed a fibroblast culture, however,” Professor Maple began, showing me a few images.

I sighed and leaned back in the chair. The files in the mansion had been quite clear about this “t-virus” being only transmitted through direct contact with the bloodstream, but it was good to confirm. “What other information do we have?”

“Every cell culture we’ve exposed to whatever viral particles we took from your clothes either showed no effect or underwent necrosis within hours. Characterization of what happens in the cell post-infection isn’t possible. We’re also out of viral samples. You…did a great job evading whatever carried this pathogen, apparently.”

Professor Maple gave me a wry smile, which I halfheartedly returned. I must have slept for days now and I was still feeling tired. Having nightmares about zombies likely had something to do with that. I took another sip of coffee.

“Thank you. For everything. I know it was sudden to ask you to do this.”

“Don’t mention it, Rebecca. I’m mainly glad you’re okay, especially after the news reported only 4 members of STARS returning from the mountains.”

There was a pause, and Professor Maple said, slowly, “What exactly happened out there? If you’re allowed to tell me, of course.”

“…Chief Irons ordered us to keep the details of this investigation secret,” I answered, making an effort to hide my reservations. After writing our reports, us remaining members of STARS had petitioned Chief Irons to open an investigation into Umbrella based on what we’d found out in the mountains. He’d refused and instead told us to keep quiet. I could understand if he didn’t want us to tell the public everything to prevent panic, but blocking an investigation?

Professor Maple’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “That’s understandable. Don’t worry about it.”

I changed the subject. “I…I’ve been thinking. I might have made a mistake joining STARS. I’m starting to see that law enforcement doesn’t really suit me, now that I’ve been on a mission.”

“Somehow I don’t think the mission you were just on counts as a regular mission,” the professor responded. “But if you want a career change, early on is always better. What do you want to do?”

“Remember how you encouraged me to go to graduate school? I think…I mean, I’d have to apply for fall 1999, but I think I’ll do that.”

“That sounds good. I know you’ll do great. Come to think of it, my colleague in Houston might have an intern opening in her lab. Why don’t I put you two in contact? You have lab experience already with me, but interning elsewhere would certainly help too.”

I smiled, probably the first time I actually felt like smiling for days. “That would be great.”

Professor Maple turned to her computer and started typing something. “Speaking of interns…you know, our summer intern reminds me a lot of you.”

“Oh, how so? The one who started after I left, right?”

“Yes. He’s young, but his aptitude is quite advanced for his age. In fact, he did all the sample preparation from your things. I know these summer things are usually a one-off, but I’d hate to see his talents go to waste. I wonder if you could be an unofficial mentor.”

I looked at her quizzically. “Me? Mentor someone?”

Professor Maple laughed. “Why not?”

“Usually I’m the one being mentored,” I said. “I mean, I don’t mind, if he’s willing to put up with me.”

Professor Maple smiled. “I’ll let him know then.”

“Actually, about the sample prep. Was the recording feed on? I’d like to see how the sample prep went.”

“It was, actually. You know, you’re probably the first person I’ve ever known to want to look at a test recording. Honestly, most of the time I don’t even know why we have that set up in the first place. Every once in awhile all it does is give one of the students extra work when it needs to be deleted to clear hard drive space.”

“Yeah, I remember having to do that a lot,” I said, chuckling. “Well, I’ll go check it out. Thanks again, Professor.”

She smiled at me as I finished my coffee and stood up wearily. I wondered if I’d ever _not_ feel tired ever again. I left the office and walked down the empty hall. It had been…what, a week? A week. Last Saturday was when we’d come home on the STARS Alpha Team’s helicopter. Ironically, I remember wishing the helicopter ride could’ve been longer so I’d have more time to sleep, despite me spending the previous 2 days desperately wishing I were back home.

My first thought upon landing was to make sure we didn’t inadvertently contaminate the city, so I called my old professor and asked her to prepare her lab. Chris and Jill instead decided to return directly to headquarters. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do – both leaders of our teams were dead and any higher-ups wouldn’t be in on Saturday.

…Not that the higher-ups being there would’ve helped things. We all went to Chief Irons on Monday and submitted our reports, including the revelation that Captain Wesker had been an Umbrella mole. The chief didn’t even seem fazed that the captain of the RPD’s elite unit had just led STARS into a trap that killed all but 5 of us.

We said 4, of course – we reported Barry among the killed in action. Chief Irons responded with the same incredulity-inducing indifference at this news, which probably meant Barry had successfully gone into hiding with his family as we’d planned.

Chris had finally lost it and yelled at Chief Irons for his seeming apathy toward our ordeal. Chief Irons responded by “officially” disbanding STARS and telling us to leave to await further orders. I was upset, for sure, but at the time I just needed rest. I’d slept through the weekend, but that wasn’t enough – even if I hadn’t had constant nightmares (which I did). Prior to that, I’d been awake for about 50 straight hours – I woke up on Thursday morning, went to work, embarked on the mission that night, had to fight my way through those Umbrella facilities and that insane leech monster throughout the night up until Friday morning, walked to the mansion while fighting those messed-up looking dogs through the forest, entered the mansion sometime in the late afternoon and searched for the rest of Bravo Team, ran into Alpha Team when they arrived Friday night, and fought our way out of that mansion – which turned out to be another Umbrella facility – into sunrise on Saturday.

I’d spend the next few days mostly recovering. Professor Maple had continually kept tabs on me, something I was incredibly grateful for. Chris and Jill had continued trying to get through to Chief Irons, to no avail. Given that Captain Wesker was an Umbrella mole, I wonder if the chief was one too. When I raised this possibility to Chris and Jill, they were grim but seemed to agree.

I don’t know what their plans are, but more and more I think fighting monsters and now corporate politics isn’t my place. If a giant corporation like Umbrella is producing bioweapons, the best I can do is probably continue being a scientist so I can aid in vaccine development, virology research, and other countermeasures to outbreaks. Sure, I’d killed a Tyrant when even Jill had trouble (I still distinctly remember her yelling, “HOW DID REBECCA MANAGE TO KILL ONE OF THESE THINGS?” on the roof of the mansion), but I’m really not a fighter. I’m not Chris, or Jill, or Barry. They’re soldiers. I’m a medic.

Rounding the corner, I entered the lab and walked over to access the terminal for viewing the test room recordings. I had a sinking feeling the horrors we’d seen in the mountains were just preludes to something much, much worse.

**Part 3 (MC): Purification by Fire, October 1998**

As I got off the bus, the falling leaves caught my eye. Autumn was right around the corner, heralding the end of the summer that had shaken the entire country. Last night, just about every new outlet reported that President Whitmore had ordered a thermobaric missile strike on Raccoon City to eradicate a hellish viral outbreak. The city I’d visited to do an unassuming summer internship was no more.

I called Miss Chambers to check on her. She wasn’t okay, unsurprisingly. It was the first time I’d actually called her. I remember being nervous after flying home from Raccoon City – Professor Maple had introduced us and asked Miss Chambers to be my unofficial mentor, to which she responded with a smile and a thumbs-up – but I was never good at initiating contact with people. Luckily, she did, sending me a cheerful e-mail the day after I’d gotten home. We were basically pen pals after that, but this time…

Through tears, speaking in rushed and almost incoherent sentences, she told me about the mission that had ended with her in Professor Maple’s lab. She’d embarked into the mountains with the rest of STARS Bravo Team, only for the helicopter to crash unexpectedly. She discovered a derelict train and investigated it to discover the passengers and crew turned into mindless zombies. She encountered an opera-singing leech that crashed the train into an Umbrella facility miles away, injuring her. A fellow survivor carried her into the building, where she performed some first-aid on herself and teamed up with the other survivor to escape the place, fighting through more zombies and much worse monsters – all, she discovered, were caused by a horrific virus developed by Umbrella. They killed the leech, which was responsible for leaking the virus.

At this point she paused – I assume to wipe away tears – before continuing, telling me that the other survivor who’d helped her was undeniably killed during the fight. She then made her way to her rendezvous point, fighting through even more monsters, but found that she had reached yet another Umbrella facility and most of her teammates from Bravo Team were dead. She met up with STARS Alpha Team and provided support as they investigated the facility. They learned that the captain of STARS, Albert Wesker, was an Umbrella mole who’d lured the entire team into the facility to be killed by the monsters created by Umbrella while blackmailing another member of STARS (Barry Burton) to help him. She managed to concoct a plan involving Barry signaling the Alpha Team pilot to get him back home while Chris Redfield, another STARS member, distracted Wesker. Miss Chambers activated the facility’s self-destruct system, which she knew existed because someone had set off a similar system in the first facility she’d gotten trapped in.

The team – plus the final surviving member, Jill Valentine – reunited in the secret Umbrella laboratory under the mansion and confronted Wesker, who woke a giant monster to kill the team. The monster killed Wesker instead and the team narrowly escaped to the roof to meet up with the returning pilot. The monster caught up with them, knocking Jill back down as she was boarding the helicopter, but the pilot dropped her a rocket launcher to kill the monster before they all escaped the exploding mansion.

I listened quietly. It was unbelievable, but that very same virus had, between the time we’d left the city to now, infected the entire city and turned the whole population into the violent cannibal zombies Miss Chambers described, to the point the President thought the only way to contain the virus was by _destroying the entire city_. There was no way she was lying – and honestly, why would she? It’s not like she has much to gain by embellishing her experiences with some kid who interned at her old lab.

“…I’m sorry,” I remember saying, even as I felt the futility of my words.

She continued. Barry disappeared with his family to protect them from Umbrella. Chris decided to go to Europe on vacation – maybe to get away from their horrific ordeal? Jill and Brad, the pilot, were unaccounted for. She told me she’d decided to return to school to study virology in the hopes of combating the pathogens Umbrella made and is undoubtedly still making, but…well, school takes time. People don’t learn advanced biotechnology overnight.

As she spoke, I thought of my own schooling. I’d always looked at school as the thing I did everyday because I was supposed to. Sure, I enjoyed some of the curriculum and I routinely tried to excel just to see how high I could achieve, but Miss Chambers’s words, at that moment, showed me that the pursuit of knowledge was supposed to have a higher purpose. It was the first of many things she would end up teaching me.

Without giving the matter too much more thought (I was having a phone conversation, after all), I awkwardly spoke. “Miss Chambers, I can tell how despairing it might seem, but…umm…look, I know you’ll achieve your goal. And…uhh, why don’t I help you? I mean, I’m not…I’m not at your level yet, but Professor Maple wanted you to mentor me, right? Teach me. Push me as hard as you will. If I learn enough, I can help you one day.”

She didn’t answer right away and I started wondering if I’d just made a fool of myself. Combating bioterrorism wasn’t exactly something one just volunteered for over the phone. I began babbling an explanation when she interrupted me, her voice no longer tenuous and shaken. She sounded strong. She sounded confident.

“Okay. We’ll both do our best. But you’d better keep up, you understand?”

A classmate’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I must’ve looked stoned or something, staring at that tree like I was. I turned and began walking home. I already had a mountain of homework – from school, and from Miss Chambers.

**Part 4 (Rebecca): Agent of Shadow, January 1999**

I looked from one grim face to another. Jill, who fought through a monster-filled mansion, killed some sort of super-Tyrant (what’d she call it – a Nemesis?) during Raccoon City’s total infection, and escaped Raccoon City even as a thermobaric missile flew through the air to reduce it to a crater; Chris, who fought through that same mansion, embarked on a one-man mission to take down the entirety of Umbrella by pretending to go to Europe on vacation, and saved his sister trapped in Antarctica, of all places; and Claire, who drove right into Raccoon City without realizing it was overrun by zombies, fought her way through the night armed with nothing except some things her brother had taught her, escaped after killing William Birkin’s horrifically mutated forms, attacked an Umbrella Europe facility by herself while looking for Chris, and fought off some creepy twins leading more of Umbrella’s evil bioweapon research. They’d all overcome ludicrous odds and struck resounding blows against Umbrella. But we were far in a celebratory or even relieved mood.

Chris had called us here – to this remote cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was the first time we’d all been together since last summer, when all this began. The only one missing was Barry, whom Chris didn’t call because he wanted Barry to have some peace with his family rather than get caught up in another fight. It seemed a prudent decision, as he wasted no time in revealing that Albert Wesker was alive. To make it worse, it seemed he now had superhuman strength and speed somehow. If (1) we hadn’t all gone through multiple ordeals involving virus-monsters and (2) Chris hadn’t been the one to tell us – Chris, who wasn’t ever the joking type, I would probably have responded irritably by demanding he stop wasting my time. But I knew he was being serious. We all did.

Jill broke the silence. “So what’s he after? To save Umbrella? The government’s been taking some public action against them.”

“I don’t think so. He seemed to have his own agenda. He was in Antarctica to retrieve another virus from Alexia Ashford.”

“How many viruses did these people make?!”

“…I guess we’ve seen three so far,” I said. “The one that we saw in the mountains and that hit the city, the thing Birkin made that Claire described, and now this new one that gave Ashford fire powers.”

Claire spoke. “During biology class the only viruses we studied were the ones that gave people diseases. Now we have zombies, mutant monsters, and fire powers?”

I didn’t respond…not that I had much of an answer. Science seemed to have gone out the window and I found myself wondering, yet again, whether me staying in school was ever going to help anyone.

Presently I said, quietly, “Regardless, we need a plan. Is there anyone else we can trust?”

“Leon,” Claire answered. “He and I got out of Raccoon City together.”

“It was Leon who told me where to go to find Claire when she ended up in Antarctica,” Chris added. “I agree we can trust him. But he’s in some sort of secret government agency now. Can he even help us? The reason he called me rather than go after Claire himself was because he couldn’t take leave on such short notice.”

“It couldn’t hurt to tell him what we know. We also need someone to warn Barry. A secret government agent Wesker doesn’t know about seems best for that,” Jill responded.

“I didn’t want to get Barry involved…” Chris said, frowning.

“But if Wesker’s back, the remaining members of STARS are going to be on his hit list. He at least needs to know. He and his family.”

“You’re right,” Chris said. “I’ll talk to Barry. Claire can talk to Leon.”

“What else can we do?” I asked.

“You should keep doing your lab research. We’re going to need your smarts moving forward,” Jill said. “I don’t know what sorts of legal maneuvering Umbrella’s going to pull to get out of these trials coming up and Wesker’s out there with at least 3 different virus strains. If another outbreak occurs somewhere, we need a cure.”

I smiled slightly. I could always count on Jill to be her supportive self. “Even thus, I really wish I could do more. Sometimes I feel so useless sitting in a lab waiting for another experiment to finish.”

“I think out of all of us right now, you’re doing the most to prepare. I mean, what are Chris and I supposed to do? Stockpile guns?”

“I don’t really see an issue with that,” Claire said. “Didn’t you say Barry was a gun connoisseur?”

“I said he knew his way around a firearm,” Chris said. “I meant it literally. He has _a_ gun. One. Can use it really well. Really attached to it.”

“That’s…decidedly less helpful than I was thinking.”

“Jill’s right, though. We need more people and more equipment. I don’t know where to start, but…that should be our immediate priority. Between a group ready to fight whatever monsters Umbrella makes to Rebecca’s work on countering their viruses, we can mount at least some sort of response to whatever comes.”

We were quiet for a short while longer before we concluded that our bare-bones plan was likely the best we could do at the time. The sun was beginning to set, so we prepared dinner – not that many of us had much of an appetite. Afterward, Chris and Jill went off to plan how to go about recruiting people to our cause. I remember Chris mentioning how thinking strategically and paying attention to secrecy wasn’t really his style and that he’d have to get used to being a leader.

I left the cabin and went out to the porch. I felt like I did the first night I went to college – alone, though I belonged there, because I was just so different from the others. I was at the age most would be starting high school, yet I was there with people who’d just finished it.

The people around me were great – they never seemed to look down on me because of my age, but the teenage years, being the tumultuous change-filled years they were, meant my peers and I were constantly on different wavelengths. It was probably the main reason I joined STARS after graduation – people of all ages join the police force, so I thought I wouldn’t be “that little child prodigy” and nothing else there. Of course, that’s exactly what I was in STARS anyway, and then my first mission happened. All of a sudden, being a child in school didn’t seem so bad anymore.

The door behind me opened and I turned to see Chris’s sister walk outside. “Getting some air too?”

“Something like that,” I said.

Claire sat down next to me. “My brother and Jill are still strategizing in there. You’re going to be figuring out how to fight the virus itself. I can’t help but wonder what I’m supposed to do. I’m not a fighter, nor am I a brilliant scientist.”

“Chris told me you demolished an Umbrella Europe facility in Paris by yourself.”

“Well Chris told _me_ you killed a Tyrant single-handedly. Among other things. Lots of other things. Doesn’t mean you’re a fighter, though, right?”

I smiled. “Touché.”

Claire stretched out and looked up at the night sky. “When I think about Umbrella, I remember what I saw in Raccoon City that night I rode in. Such a big city, clearly once full of life, reduced to hell. You guys see a war to fight, but all I can think of is a bunch of regular people caught in the crossfire.”

“There’re some humanitarian organizations trying to help the families of the victims in Raccoon City. Are you thinking of joining one of them?”

“No. Umbrella’s cover-up is slowing down their efforts. They need to be organized. I was thinking of getting them all to coordinate somehow.”

“How would you do that? I mean, it sounds great, don’t get me wrong.”

Claire sighed. “I don’t know. I have a few friends at school who’re better at this than I am. But I just…I just feel like I need to do _something_.”

“I know the feeling,” I responded. “I’m sure you’ll make a big impact.”

Claire smiled. “Thanks. I hope so.”

**Part 5 (MC): Reunion, October 2001**

The entire class was staring at me. Blinking, I realized the teacher had noticed my lack of attention to her lecture and had asked me a question to call me out. I quickly scanned the board.

“Uhh, well, the DNA reads ACT, which means the mRNA would read UGA, so that’s a stop codon. There’s…only 2 amino acids coded before that, one of which is AUG for methionine, so that’s likely a mutation resulting in a truncated protein. Was I close?”

“…Yes, actually. That’s exactly right. Thank you.”

I relaxed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to pay attention to class – I was just more sleep-deprived than usual. I’d moved to Houston in the summer of 2000 and, though it was hard to leave my friends, moving wasn’t new to me. I’d had to move fairly frequently during my childhood. I was also a mixture of excited and nervous to see Miss Chambers again, who was beginning her doctoral studies.

She kept teaching me with her usual strict and accelerated pace, constantly pushing me to my limits. As a result, my regular classes seemed incredibly easy in comparison and my classmates routinely expressed awe at how effortless school seemed to me. If only they knew the intensity of the fire I was being forged in.

Keeping up with normal school, Miss Chambers’s tutelage, and my extracurriculars was definitely taking a toll on me. But I felt alive – like life was a coursing river and I was fighting valiantly against it, growing stronger over time. Most people looked at their youthful energy in hindsight, but I could see the present was the time of my life I could afford to fill up my schedule recklessly.

I wasn’t exactly skilled at my extracurricular activities. I’d begun learning kendo out of a silly childhood obsession with Japanese swords, but I’ve always been frail and non-athletic. I enjoyed archery much more, as it didn’t involve strenuous physical activity, but my poor eyesight made improving difficult.

Today was an off day, though, one of those rare days I could actually slack off with nothing of note to do. I returned home, showered, ate dinner, and decided to browse the Internet. A few news articles documented the ongoing Raccoon Trials, with analysts discussing the thinly veiled obstruction tactics continually employed by Umbrella’s attorneys and their conservative, pro-corporate allies in Washington. Even to me, someone usually uninterested in politics, the proceedings were infuriating.

As I continued scrolling, a headline caught my eye. It was an economic article describing Umbrella’s assets dropping in value. I clicked on it and was surprised to see a section mentioning an Internet rumor that Umbrella’s pathogens – the ones that had infected Raccoon City – could also have found their way into Umbrella’s standard over-the-counter products.

The article linked to a message board and a post…which I recognized as my own. Someone had asked how pathogens, such as viruses, could spread, and I had responded: depending on the pathogen, multiple forms of transmission were possible. As an off-comment, I mentioned that contaminated food or drugs was a possibility.

I hadn’t checked that message board since, but as I scrolled then, I realized people had taken my comments and run with them to increasingly ludicrous conclusions. Umbrella was associated with viruses now that the Trials were ongoing. What if their products were contaminated? What if the way their headache medication worked was to deliver virus to shut down the brain so it would stop hurting? What if their scented skin cream dispensed virus along with the scent and everyone was being brainwashed right now? What if their cold medication was teleporting the cold virus, using secret alien technology, into their labs so they could enhance it into some sort of super-cold virus and teleport it back out into the wild ZOMG?

It was slightly amusing as I read through the posts, but then I remembered the article that had brought me here. The point was that the environment of secrecy on Capitol Hill was leading to all sorts of conspiracy theories and rumors – and as they spread, people were increasingly eschewing Umbrella’s products. Even if someone didn’t quite believe the rumors, plenty of companies were making headache medicine – buying another brand would change little and the consumer would be safe in case the rumors _were_ true.

Umbrella was a corporation – part of its power was economic. If Umbrella lost enough money, they would become unable to play all the political games in front of Congress. Lawyers cost money, after all.

That gave me an idea. Spreading rumors to damage Umbrella’s public reputation shouldn’t be difficult. I returned to the message board and began to write. I was subtle – using crazy conspiracy-theory language was just going to get me ignored. No, instead, people should calm down. Umbrella’s baby formula was likely not brainwashing your newborn with invisible alien ray technology; instead, there was just some chance it got contaminated during production, so your newborn would just get really sick. Teleporting pathogens was impossible, guys, the worst Umbrella could do was make medicine, sell it, see how well it worked against pathogens in the wild, and use that knowledge to make stronger pathogens. No, I doubt Umbrella made genetically enhanced violent raccoons in Raccoon City. Why would they, when there are far deadlier animals to weaponize, like a bear-shark hybrid.

Days passed. I wasn’t the only one making posts like this (though, perhaps I was the only one with my specific motive), but it soon came to pass that a wide range of conspiracy theories and rumors spread throughout the country. Some were quite outlandish – most of them involved aliens or evil mastermind dogs, but that only made the more subtle ones even more believable. And honestly, some of the things I and others had written were probably true (not the aliens or the evil mastermind dogs).

People around me continually avoided Umbrella’s products and, it seemed, that trend was continuing across the country. Umbrella’s estimated worth continued to fall. They had a long way to fall, but they fell. Looking back, I don’t know how much my silly posts really contributed to that, but it was probably _something_ , and that brought me some joy.

**Part 6 (Rebecca): A Path to Darkness, April 2002**

I entered the lab and put my things down. The other graduate students looked up briefly and went back to whatever they’d been doing when I walked in. They rarely talked to me anymore, but that didn’t really bother me.

It was more than 3 years after Raccoon City’s destruction. When I first got home after my first mission, all I could think about was how relieved I was to be alive. Then, after I recovered, I thought about what to do in order to hold Umbrella accountable for all the horrible things they’d done in their secret labs, not to mention the leaked virus and the murders.

Chief Irons had stopped us. The remaining members of STARS decided to combat Umbrella in our own way. Even after their virus wiped out an entire city, we remained hopeful that we – and others – could bring them to justice. That was 3 years ago.

The government opened an investigation and took Umbrella to trial over what happened in Raccoon City. Months of bureaucracy and legal scheming turned into years – _3 years_ – and Umbrella was still standing. The media initially covered the trials frequently, but not anymore. Claire’s TerraSave organization continued to support the families of those lost in Raccoon City, but it seemed that they would never see justice served. Chris and Jill had indeed recruited a few survivors to their cause, but they could do little – attacking Umbrella facilities would simply lead to them being labeled as terrorists. And me? I’d powered through my coursework requirements during my first year of doctoral studies and then dove directly into wet lab work. Experiments and projects moved slowly, but to make things worse, I found myself afraid to publish papers on my virology research. Someone, somewhere, could use them to make more potent pathogens. And a graduate student who didn’t publish research was a failed graduate student. My PI continually put pressure on me, which was maddening enough.

Umbrella was going to get away with all they’d done while we sat around struggling with futility. It was all so infuriatingly frustrating.

I dealt with my feelings by burying myself in my work. Academics had always come easily to me and research, while not the same as coursework, still served the same purpose. I spent most of my time in lab. Regularly I’d put on my old combat gear and exercise. Once a week I did my tutoring session. That was my life. Nothing else.

I performed my labwork in silence as the day went on. People went in and out of the lab, chatting about one thing or another. I paid them no mind, and they did the same to me. The afternoon came, and I finished up to go tutor.

He’d made a lot of progress, especially lately. He honestly didn’t need me, or anyone, to tutor him. He was already obliterating all his regular coursework, but he would come every week to visit me. I didn’t exactly mind, I guess. We’d been doing this for 3 years already, after all.

He was waiting for me as I walked into the lounge. “Miss Chambers,” he said, with that smile.

“Hey,” I replied, and sat down. He showed me what he’d done over the week – some moderately advanced stuff, especially for his age – and I gave him a few comments and told him what to do next. I quizzed him on some protein synthesis mechanisms, which he got partially correct, and I gave him some more to study.

As we ended for the day, I stood up and prepared to return to lab. He remained sitting and I stopped to look at him.

“Miss Chambers,” he said, slowly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…am I…a bother?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just…lately, you seem distant. For awhile now, actually. And I just thought –”

“Look, if you don’t want to meet up like this anymore, just say so.”

“No, it’s not that! I just wanted to ask whether you were okay.”

Was I _okay_? Of course I wasn’t okay. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I don’t have time for this. We’re done for today. Go home.”

“Please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

I lost it. “What’s _wrong_? _Everything_ is wrong, you…you naïve child. People in suits play chess in the government while who-knows how many twisted maniacs are hiding in their secret, insane, lavish mansions making eldritch horrors to kill people. You’re asking me what’s _wrong_? Do you know how many people died 3 years ago? Of course you don’t. _Grow up_.”

A look of pure hurt covered his face. Shaking my head, I turned heel and left the lounge. I really had no time for this.

**Finale: The Terragrigia Panic, Part I (MC), June 2004**

“I’m worried about Jay,” Nick muttered. “I feel like he shouldn’t be on this trip.”

I sighed in agreement, but said, “I talked to him…but it doesn’t really seem fair to tell him that he shouldn’t come to Europe with us just because Daisy invited Tom along.”

Nick was quiet. I snuck a look to my right, where Jay was sitting. He didn’t notice. He had his head down and rocked slowly back and forth in the seat.

“How could Daisy do this to him?” Nick spoke up. “Tom’s the biggest dickwad in the grade.”

“I’m not arguing with you, but I’m also the last person you should talk to about relationships.”

Nick fell silent again. I crossed my legs and sat back in the seat to look around the terminal. Talking with friends about messed-up love triangles, huh? I guess this was what normal teenagers talked about.

It was 2004. I’d had only sporadic contact with Miss Chambers since that day she yelled at me. I doubted she wanted to keep teaching me, and I guess I was right, since the following week I’d gone to the medical center to meet her and she didn’t show. The hurt from missing my weekly visits with her still hasn’t really gone away, though I guess my workload lightened up considerably since then. Despite this, I still tried to keep myself occupied learning about advanced biotechnology.

Umbrella fell last year. They declared bankruptcy after someone released damning evidence that Umbrella was directly responsible for Raccoon City’s destruction. All sorts of rumors abounded as to who that was – this time, I contributed nothing to them, since I had exactly no idea who could possibly have that sort of information, but one thing was clear: Umbrella was finished and their bioterrorism days were over. Its CEO was now one of the most wanted men in the world. The United Nations and the United States even declared the formation of official armed task forces specifically to hunt and destroy bioterrorists – the BSAA and the FBC, respectively.

I excitedly called Miss Chambers to talk to her about this, but hung up before she answered. The fall of one company, even one like Umbrella, was unlikely to stop the threat of weaponized pathogens. If I celebrated, I’d be every bit the child she thought I was.

So I just continued as I was. My friends seemed surprised when I actually decided to hang out with them, with more free time for leisure, and I made an attempt to enjoy the moment. I don’t think I ever quite succeeded, but I kept trying to be a regular, non-studying-all-the-time teenager.

That was why I decided to join my friends on this trip to Europe. It was just a handful of us, and initially we’d schemed with Jay to spend more time with his crush, Daisy. At the last minute, she decided to date this other guy, so now Jay was stuck on a trip to the other side of the world with a small group of people that included the girl who broke his heart and the guy she chose over him.

“We’ll keep him company,” Nick said. “We’re bros, right? We gotta watch out for one another.”

Bros, huh? “You’re right,” I finally answered.

The plane ride was uneventful, if not somewhat bumpy, and we landed in Terragrigia to meet up with the others. From the sky, the aquapolis looked absolutely breathtaking and I marveled at how they had managed to build a fully self-sustaining floating city in the Mediterranean Sea. _It was 2004_. I was still using dial-up Internet at home – people really had this sort of advanced engineering capability?

Terragrigia had a section of the city specifically for tourists – it made sense for a city like this to generate revenue from tourism. The airport was in the middle of the tourist sector with a convenient sky-tram system that connected to hotels, malls, and museums. A few of us had itineraries full of things to see. I, on the other hand, was just planning on tagging along, though I was uninterested in the beach. I don’t like sand – it’s coarse and rough and irritating…and it gets everywhere.

We rode the tram to our hotel, taking in the view from the glass walls of the tunnel the tram traveled through. About 15 minutes in, the tram stopped at the hotel and we disembarked into a wide room with people milling about dragging luggage and hotel staff carting around trolleys. Exiting through a set of large double doors and a short hallway, we emerged in a small lobby with escalators leading to and from the lower levels, providing access to the check-in counters. I was already exhausted by the time we finished checking in and I decided I wanted to go up to crash. We rode the elevator up – one of those where the walls were completely transparent, giving us a grand view of the plaza – and entered our respective rooms. I opened my window and looked out into the city – from the 12th floor, the view was even more breathtaking compared to the tram tunnel. It was an incredibly gorgeous day, made even more apparent by the shining solar panels and the bright blue sea beyond. People from all over the world had helped build this city and people from all over the world now lived in it – a marvel of engineering, a testament to cooperation, and an example that clean energy was absolutely possible. It did bring a small smile to my face.

I stretched out on the bed and was asleep before I knew it – a testament to how tired I was from the flight, as I usually had trouble sleeping anywhere that wasn’t my room at home. A loud series of knocks woke me and I groggily answered. Amy, Rita, and Cyndi – three of our friends who were always together (we called them collectively as “the trio”) – poked their heads in.

“How heavily were you sleeping? We’ve been trying to wake you up for like 5 minutes.”

I mumbled something unintelligible even to myself. Cyndi rolled her eyes and Rita gestured outside. “We’re getting people together for dinner. Come on.”

I cleaned myself up somewhat and went out into the hall. Everyone was already there: Nick, with Jay in the back looking sullen; the trio, deciding where to go for food; Myrtle and her boyfriend George; and finally Tom next to Daisy.

Many indecisive minutes later, we decided to go to an American restaurant (because of course we’d go to an American restaurant in Europe) and headed out as a group. Dinner was actually nice, with Tom, Daisy, George, and Myrtle at one end of the table while the rest of us chatted amongst ourselves on the other end. After dinner, George and Myrtle decided to go on a short boat ride out into the harbor – George always did like boats – and the rest of us headed back to the hotel.

Despite having that impromptu nap earlier, I was pretty tired and fell asleep quickly, but was then woken up a few hours later by loud, sexual moaning coming from the neighboring room. It was Myrtle’s very distinctive voice, to my irritation (and awkward disgust) and I tried my hardest to get back to sleep so I wouldn’t need to listen to her. Why were hotel walls always so thin?

Morning came and I went through my morning routine before heading out into the hall. As I turned to lock my door, I realized something – Myrtle’s room wasn’t next to mine. Her and George’s room was at the end of the hall.

Descending the elevator, I found Nick and Jay in the dining area. I motioned to Nick and he walked over.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“…No. Myrtle was…uhm, moaning…and the walls are thin.”

Nick gave me a horrified look and I continued. “Remind me…whose room is next to mine?”

Nick shook his head. “Wait… _Tom’s_ room is next to yours.”

I closed my eyes in disgust. “I. Hate. That. Guy.”

Just then, Myrtle entered the room. “Hey guys, have you seen George around? I came back early from the boat ride last night. When I woke up this morning, he still wasn’t here.”

I took a breath and pondered what to do next when Cyndi popped into view. “There you all are. There’s some weird broadcast on TV. It’s on every channel. Come look.”

Following Cyndi, we entered the lounge area, where the large TV showed some guy in a gas mask speaking…something.

“What language is that?” Myrtle piped up.

“It’s Italian,” Jay said. Nick jumped – those were probably the first words he’d uttered since the trip began.

“Do you know what he’s saying?”

“He’s reciting a poem. Something about…circles of Hell?”

The broadcast ended and returned to the news, where the anchor looked extremely confused. She turned away from the camera and asked what was going on, talking to (I assume) her crew before realizing her program was back on the air.

“Well, I apologize for that…not sure what just happened. We were…we were covering the strange attacks last night at the docks. Authorities say the aquatic harbor tour, a popular spot for visitors, was attacked by unknown creatures. Three boats were destroyed and sank. Investigations are ongoing.”

“Hey, that’s where I was last night,” Myrtle said. “Wow, I’m glad I left early.”

“…Didn’t you say _your boyfriend_ was still there when you left?” I responded, making an effort to push back the anger in my voice.

“Oh,” Myrtle said. “Hmm, I hope he’s okay.”

Honestly, I didn’t even know George that well, but the situation still made my blood boil. I struggled to decide whether to calm down and figure out what to do next (like determine whether or not George were indeed okay) or yell at Myrtle for being an unfaithful, heartless bitch when a loud crash from the front entrance interrupted my thoughts. More crashes followed…then screams. Whoever was at the front desk below yelled loudly and suddenly fell silent. The others in the lounge began to panic and run.

“We should go,” Rita said. “The stairs. Come on!”

Together, we turned and left the lounge. As I ran down the hall, at the corner of my eye I saw a shape launch itself up into the ascending elevator, packed with people. The glass around the elevator shattered and the people’s desperate screams rent the air.

“Oh my God what is that thing?”

“There’re more behind us! Keep running!”

We burst through the door into the stairwell. I was already panting with exertion, but I managed to keep up with the rest as we climbed flight after flight. The dining area was on the 5th floor, meaning we had 7 floors of stairs to ascend. Emerging onto the 12th floor, I collapsed against the railing to catch my breath and looked over at the floor below. I recoiled.

There was blood. Dead bodies. Injured bodies. And swarming the floor were large, green, lizard-like things sporting long claws finishing off the injured. They moved with demonic speed and, as I watched, I quickly saw those claws weren’t simply for show.

Though I’d never seen one before, I recognized them. Miss Chambers had described them to me, long ago, as one of the things she’d fought on her first mission.

“What…what…”

I turned beside me. Nick was there, watching the same scene unfold, his face pale with horror.

“Come on,” I managed. “We need to congregate somewhere not as exposed.”

The trio’s room was the largest, so we piled on in there. Rita entered a second later with Daisy and Tom in tow. I grimaced as I remembered what I’d been so angry about, but it wasn’t exactly the time for that.

“What the hell are those things?!”

“…They’re called Hunters,” I said, softly. “They’re a bioweapon. Manufactured monster.”

“You can’t be serious,” Tom said.

I gave him the most venomous look. “Do I look like I’m kidding? You want to go down there yourself and see whether I’m kidding?”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Rita said. “Let’s figure out what to do.”

“What’s to figure out? We call 911,” Myrtle said, moving toward the phone.

“Guys, I think you should look at this,” Amy said, looking out the window. We walked over to her and looked down onto the ground below. The death and destruction were shocking – cars crashed in flames, Hunters chasing and killing panicked people, some buildings on fire…it was a far cry from the lovely view from yesterday, when we’d first arrived.

“Try the police anyway – it’s 112 over here, by the way – but we need to figure out a plan in case you don’t get through. It looks like the entire city is…experiencing whatever this is – everyone’s going to be trying to call the police,” Rita said.

While Myrtle was dialing, I spoke. “This is a bioterrorist attack. The BSAA or the FBC will have to respond. We need to hold out somewhere until they get here.”

“Should we wait here? Barricade the doors?” Cyndi suggested.

“I don’t think so,” I responded. “If those Hunters manage to get in, we’re trapped. We need to get somewhere with more of an escape route. Ideally, it’ll be somewhere rescue teams are likely to land.”

Tom: “The docks, then. We’re on an island – they’ll send forces by sea.”

I shook my head. “One, the docks are out in the open. We’ll be exposed. Two, there were a bunch of attacks last night in the harbor – I’m guessing whoever launched this attack is attacking from sea. We’ll need to hope for air support.”

“Well don’t _you_ just know everything.”

I sighed. “Only compared to you, dimwit. Anyway, most roofs in this city are composed completely of solar panels. They’re not going to land on them. They’ll either land in the open somewhere or at the airport. We can’t sit out in the open, so I say we get to the airport.”

Tom advanced on me. “What did you call me?!”

“Guys, _cut it out already_. We have bigger issues,” Rita snapped. “We’ll use the sky-tram to the airport. I don’t know if it’s still working with all this, but it’s worth a shot.”

On the other side of the room, Myrtle slammed the phone down with an exasperated sigh. “You were right, Rita. All I get is a busy signal.”

“Alright. Let’s plan how to get to the –”

The sound of splintering wood outside interrupted Rita. Everyone turned with fearful looks toward the door. Footsteps sounded, along with some low growling. They grew louder and louder until the growls turned into a long, angry howl – which suddenly disappeared somewhere far away to our left. Toward that direction, we heard several terrified screams.

“It must’ve found some prey somewhere down the hall,” I said. “Come on, we need to leave while it’s distracted. The stairs are to the right. Let’s go!”

Together we opened the door and fled toward the stairwell. The screams continued behind us with the horrifying sound of growling and flesh tearing. I didn’t look back – I think none of us did. We made it to the stairwell and began to run down.

“The tram stops at the third floor,” Nick said as we ran. “Come on!”

Nobody said anything as we frantically ran down the stairs, probably due to exertion and fear. As we approached the third floor, we slowed. Rita put a finger to her mouth, signaling we should be quiet – we needed to exit the stairwell, but we didn’t know what was on the other side of the door. There would likely be more Hunters in the lower floors compared to where we were just at.

Nick gingerly opened the door, looked out, and turned back with a slight shrug: the coast was clear. We inched out into the hallway and began moving, as quietly as possible, toward the lobby. I still heard crashes, but off in the distance, outside the hotel. I hoped, however unlikely it was, that the Hunters had somehow decided the hotel was clear and left for some other location.

We approached the lobby. Shattered glass from the elevator shaft covered the floor, some visibly stained with blood. Rita pointed past the lobby, down at the glass, and put her finger to her lips again. Following her lead, we began tiptoeing past the elevator shaft, trying to step only in bare patches of floor. Behind me, I heard Myrtle mumble something – and then collapse to the floor.

The group turned, alarmed. “She never could handle the sight of blood,” Tom said in a low voice. “Let’s leave her here. She’ll slow us down.”

The trio collectively shot him an incredulous glare, but before anyone could say anything, a few growls from the lower floors caught our attention.

“They heard us,” Cyndi whispered. “We need to go hide. Tom, carry Myrtle. You’re the biggest one.”

“Why should I –”

The growling grew louder. Shaking his head, Jay picked up Myrtle and awkwardly leaned her against his shoulder. He gestured with his head toward one of the rooms back down the hall with the door ajar and we began moving again. We made it to the room and Rita softly closed the door. As Jay lowered Myrtle to the floor, we stared unmoving at the door, fearfully expecting a Hunter to claw its way in. A few tense moments later, nothing had happened, and we moved further into the room.

“She’s bleeding,” Amy said, examining Myrtle’s right leg. It didn’t quite surprise me, considering she fell onto a bunch of broken glass.

“Get some of the towels from the bathroom. We should try to clean the wound.” Rita replied. She looked around and added, “The people who were staying here didn’t happen to carry a first-aid kit around, did they?”

I felt somewhat dirty rummaging through a stranger’s luggage, but I guess I was under extenuating circumstances. My search came up empty, anyway. In the meantime, the trio had accumulated wet towels with soap around Myrtle and were doing their best for her cut.

“No luck, huh?” Rita asked, looking up. I shook my head.

“We still need to disinfect the wound. I wonder if the staff room has a first-aid kit. Or at least some rubbing alcohol.”

“What about those things that are still out there?” Tom asked.

Amy sighed. “Fine. We need someone to stay in here and watch Myrtle anyway. The rest of us will go out and try to find a first-aid kit.”

Tom seemed to agree to this – I couldn’t quite decide whether that surprised me or not – and the rest of us prepared to leave the room.

**Finale: The Terragrigia Panic, Part II (Rebecca), June 2004**

I handed the menu back to the waiter and looked back at Claire, who continued her story about her recent motorcycle trip. She’d wanted to pay a visit to some of the people she’d met while conducting volunteer activities on behalf of TerraSave and take a road trip in the meantime. I marveled at how she seemed so…happy. Well, I guess “happy” wasn’t quite the correct term. She definitely seemed relaxed.

“And then…let’s see…oh, right. I went to DC and saw Sherry. She wants to begin special agent training soon – next year, if possible. I’d hoped to see Leon, but he wasn’t around. I wonder what he would’ve said to Sherry following in his footsteps.”

“Sherry Birkin? Wait, how old is she?”

“I want to say 18?”

“Becoming a special agent that young, huh?”

“Says the girl who became STARS Bravo Rear Security when _she_ was 18.”

I allowed myself a small smile. Suddenly, something came to mind and I looked up at Claire. “Hey…I have a question for you. About Sherry.”

“Shoot.”

“How did…how did you have the kind of time to look after her? You visited her often, didn’t you? I can’t imagine leading TerraSave left you with much free time.”

Claire shrugged. “I made time.” She picked up her glass of water and took a sip, then said, “Besides, it’s good to remind myself why I’m doing what I do. I’m sure you’ve thought of that, too, haven’t you? You’re a scientist, like Sherry’s parents, but you’re doing this to help people and make the world safer, not to make zombie viruses because you can. Without reminding yourself of the sort of people you’re doing this for – the humanity in your life, what else is there?”

I was quiet. Claire continued. “Don’t you have a student? The smart one, from Raccoon City? It’s like that, right? You make time for him, like I make time for Sherry.”

A pang of regret lanced through me. I still hadn’t forgotten that day I lashed out at him. Every time I thought about it, I logically deduced that I hadn’t really said anything wrong. The world was at war. We had to inure ourselves and fight. Those monsters in the mountain facilities, the destruction of Raccoon City, those creepy twins Claire went through trying to find Chris – that’s what we were up against. But despite all that, I felt bad about what I’d said.

“Rebecca?”

I snapped out of my introspection and re-focused on Claire. “Sorry. Just spacing out. Tell me…tell me more about Sherry.”

She quizzically cocked her head to one side, but humored me and began talking about how she’d met her in Raccoon City, how they’d escaped, and how she’d tried her best to be there for Sherry when the government scientists continually ran experiments on her to characterize the virus her father had infected her with.

As she spoke, my mind drifted again. Sometimes, when I had a long night in lab, I thought back to the graduate students in Professor Maple’s group. Sometimes they seemed stressed – one of them literally told me that graduate school “is the Dark Age of life” – but they still found ways to decompress and look forward. As Claire talked about Sherry, a girl whose neglectful parents contributed to the utter destruction of her hometown, but a girl who still decided she would fight for a safer world, I thought about myself when I first joined STARS. Bright-eyed. Hopeful. Eager to make the world a better place. I’d lost that, especially since I started graduate school. During those long nights in lab, I kept telling myself that the graduate students I’d known during undergraduate hadn’t seen the horrors I had, trying to justify why I despaired so while they seemed to roll with the punches, but Sherry had arguably seen worse – closer-up – and she hadn’t become grim and jaded.

I thought back to the night the missile hit Raccoon City, to that pledge to fight Umbrella made over the phone. He was also bright-eyed. Hopeful. Eager to make the world a better place. I saw my younger self in him – Professor Maple was right when she said we were similar – and then, a few years later, I’d called him a naïve child who needed to grow up. I’d changed. And not for the better. And listening to Claire talk about Sherry told me that “I once went through hell” wasn’t a legitimate excuse.

“Rebecca? Are you okay?”

For the second time that night, I snapped out of my introspection and re-focused on Claire. Slowly, I said, “You’re all so…resilient.”

“Huh?”

The food came and Claire began eating. “You and Chris and Jill. And Sherry. You all keep fighting on with hope. I don’t know how you do it. Sometimes I struggle with all this and I…I think I’ve become this grumpy, bitter old lady.”

Claire chuckled. “I’m older than you are, you know.”

“I do all this research. And it seems to go nowhere. So I do more research. And the frustration gets to me. Each time I hear you or Jill talk about all this, I keep wondering whether I’ve lost something. This…it doesn’t seem to have gotten to you the same way it has to me.”

“You remind me of Chris,” Claire said, taking another bite out of her sandwich. “After we got out of Antarctica, he started obsessively going to the gym. Hours on end. Every day. He drifted further and further away from his friends – from me. I think he got lost in his training, just like you. Just…he lifts weights rather than do…whatever it is you do.”

“…Is he still like that?”

“He and Jill had a big argument one day. Afterward, he moped for awhile, then apologized to Jill and…he’s better about it now. She’s a good influence on him…always was, really.”

Another bite. “It’s like I said before. The humanity in our lives – the people we care about, who care about us. They’re important.”

I sighed and began eating. “I have a lot to think about,” I said between bites.

Claire smiled. “We’ve all gone through some horrible things, I know. But…we’ll make it. We’ll make it together.”

I didn’t answer right away and Claire finished her sandwich. “Besides, think about it. Umbrella was a gigantic international mega-corporation and they spent all their resources making viruses and monsters and insane houses all over the world. They went under last year, in a big part due to a few police officers and a college girl looking for her brother. Sure, there are probably remnants out there – Wesker, for example, so it’s not like we’ve won forever, but I think we’ve done pretty well so far with what we had.”

I honestly couldn’t argue with that. I felt better, I thought, just talking with Claire over dinner. Maybe she was right about the whole “humanity” thing. “Thanks,” I started, when Claire’s phone went off.

Claire picked it up. “Sorry, I have to take this,” she said.

I continued eating and almost choked when Claire screamed, “WHAT?!”

The entire restaurant went silent and turned to our table. I froze and looked at Claire.

“Got it. I’ll get over there as soon as I can.” She hung up and noticed me, plus the rest of the restaurant, staring at her.

“There’s been a bioterror attack on Terragrigia.”

The other patrons started chattering amongst themselves. It took me a second to register what Claire had said…and then I absolutely lost it.

Frantically standing up, I leaned onto the table and began yelling. “My…he’s in Terragrigia. He’s on vacation there. Claire, what happened?! Tell me!”

**Finale: The Terragrigia Panic, Part III (MC), June 2004**

We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we returned to the hotel room, first-aid kit in tow. The trip had been remarkably uneventful, if not extremely tense. All of us expected Hunters to jump out at us at any moment, but besides the occasional low growl from the lower floors, we encountered no sign of them.

“Uhh…is this the right room? Where are they?” Cyndi’s voice cut through our temporarily respite.

I blinked and looked around. The room was deserted. The towels Rita had prepared for Myrtle were still on the floor, but Myrtle herself was not. A quick search revealed no sign of Tom, either.

“Maybe…Hunters got close and they fled?” Amy posited.

“Tom wanted to leave Myrtle behind. If he’d run away, he’d have left Myrtle here. She wasn’t even conscious when we left,” I said.

“I honestly can’t believe he even considered leaving her.” Rita muttered.

I walked around the room, thinking. There wasn’t any sign of a struggle, which suggested to me Tom had simply run for it, but that didn’t explain where Myrtle had gone or how. It was then I thought of something – the virus that hit Raccoon City turned people into zombies. If whoever launched this attack also released a similar virus into the city and it had infected Myrtle, she would’ve just reanimated, gotten up, and left…but no, I distinctly remember Miss Chambers saying the virus wasn’t airborne. Then again…Myrtle had an open wound.

“Guys, we need to be careful. I think they might’ve released a pathogen in the city.”

Everyone turned to me. “What makes you think that?”

I relayed my thoughts to the group.

“This just keeps getting better and better, huh? So now what do we do?” Nick sighed.

The group paused for a bit, then Rita spoke. “There’s not much use sitting around here. We’ll head to the tram and go to the airport as we planned. If Tom and Myrtle made it out of here, they’ll likely be heading in that direction too.”

I thought to myself we were lucky Rita was on this trip with us. She’d organized most of what we’d done since the attack started. Slowly, we crept back out of the room and continued onward toward the tram stop. I felt like we were hearing fewer growls as we moved, though it could’ve simply been wishful thinking. We arrived as the escalators, which were still running. The escalator leading into the third floor had a pile of dead bodies collected on the top, but we saw no Hunters.

We rushed into the hallway and into the disembarking room for the tram. Some sections of the glass wall of the tunnel were broken, but the metal doors that would normally allow passengers to enter and exit the tram were still closed.

“So…I guess the first question is whether the trams are still running,” Cyndi whispered. “Either we wait here or we walk into the tunnel and head to the airport that way.”

“I don’t think the trams are still running,” I answered. “Look down that way – there’s some flaming wreckage in the tunnel. So even if the trams were running, the tunnel’s blocked. All the trams run from left to right, so nothing’s getting here.”

“Then we need to walk down the tunnel,” Amy said. “Should we just crawl through the broken glass?”

“I’m worried about cuts,” I said. “Even if we’re careful, one mistake and we’re done. I mean, we could break the glass more, but that’ll make noise. I think we need to find a way to get through those doors.”

“…Uhh, how?” Nick asked.

We were quiet while my mind whirled. We could go hunting for a crowbar? No, that was idiotic. Did crowbars even exist outside of video games and movies? I don’t think I’d ever seen a real crowbar before. Man, I’m easily distracted. But what if…

“Guys, I think I have an idea. You guys have cell phones, right? I don’t.”

“Yeah…what, are we going to call the police again?” I guess I could always count on my buddies to be sarcastic, even in situations like this.

I rolled my eyes. “Let me re-phrase my question. I need 2 of you to part with your phones. For good.”

“Sure. Are we going to chuck our phones at the doors?” Nick rejoined.

“Are you boys stupid?” Amy glared at us.

“I need 2 phones. Set them to max ring volume. One we’re going to plant on the other side of the doors into the tunnel. The other we’re going to plant at the entrance to this hallway. We’re going to find a place to hide and call the hallway phone, attracting whatever Hunters are down there. When they get here, we call the tunnel phone. The Hunter will hopefully try to attack the source of the sound, smashing through the door. Then we call the hallway phone again, and while the Hunter’s distracted back that way, we run into the tunnel.”

“That has to be the most insane plan I’ve ever heard in my life. Are you high?”

“It might work. Besides, I don’t have any better ideas. You can use my phone. Let’s pile up the luggage around here onto the trolley and push it into that corner. We’ll hide behind it.” Rita took charge again.

“Rita, you have some sort of rap song as your ringtone. Maybe we should change it to that annoying shrill ring.” Cyndi mused.

Nick sighed and began changing the sound on his phone. Cyndi and Amy began setting up the trolley. I told them to watch out for blood…not that I really needed to, I guess.

“I’ll go plant the phones,” Jay said, quietly. Nick paused for a minute, then indicated he’d go with him. Rita handed Jay her phone and went off to help the rest of the trio. I joined her. Daisy so far had done…well, nothing. I paid her no mind. Presently, Nick and Jay returned soon and we finished piling whatever luggage we could find onto the trolley.

“Jay had the bright idea of propping one of the corpses onto the door,” Nick muttered. I glanced at Jay, alarmed, but he held up his hands and indicated he hadn’t gotten any blood on himself. It was still not something I felt comfortable with, but having a body against the door might help convince any Hunters we attracted to attack it.

We took our positions behind the trolley. Taking a deep breath, Amy called Nick’s phone. The shrill, alarming ring echoed through the hall. About 5 seconds later, we heard the unmistakable growl of a Hunter and a crash out in the hallway. Amy hung up and Cyndi called Rita’s phone next. As I watched, huddled behind the trolley, a Hunter leapt from the hallway directly into the metal doors, cutting through them with one swipe. It continued swinging its arms while moving into the tunnel and the phone suddenly went silent. I assumed it had crushed it or something.

Nick’s phone went off again. It took the Hunter a second to turn around before it ran back out of view. I sharply jerked my head to the side and we made a break for it. The Hunter had made a piece of work on the doors – they were completely off their tracks and broken on the floor of the tunnel. Blood was spilling out of the body Jay had propped up. I slowed and gently entered the tunnel, avoiding the body and the blood, and began running to my right, away from the flaming wreckage I’d seen earlier. The rest of the group followed.

I kept my head low, hoping anything on the streets below wouldn’t notice us running down the glass tunnel. I heard nothing except the others’ footsteps behind me, suggesting the Hunter back at the hotel hadn’t noticed us as it investigated Nick’s phone. We continued for a bit, too scared to look back, before I slowed to a stop.

I turned around to look at the others. They seemed to be tired, but uninjured.

“You owe me a new phone,” Nick quipped. Amy gave him a disapproving look that brought a small smile to my face. I turned toward the glass wall and looked down at the street below. The carnage was staggering. I saw no Hunters – I guessed they were either in the buildings or further into the city – but there was no mistaking the destruction they’d caused. Bloody corpses, some missing body parts, adorned the street amidst overturned cars and dented wrecks. An 18-wheeler lay on its side. Further down the street, a burning umbrella shop sent plumes of black smoke into the air. I heard some sirens off in the distance and more than a few alarms in various buildings, likely on account of all the fire.

“Let’s keep moving,” Rita said softly, and we continued. “Hopefully we’ll be safe in here. Those things don’t really have a reason to attack or patrol these tunnels, anyway. I’m sure they got any populated trams by now.”

“Even so, let’s keep to the center and keep heads low,” I said, as we walked.

After a few minutes of travel, it seemed Rita was right. The tunnel was quiet. Cyndi wondered how long it would take for the BSAA or the FBC to arrive and I honestly didn’t know. They had been founded in response to Umbrella’s bioweapons, but no major outbreaks had occurred since Raccoon City’s destruction. Their response to this would likely be a first for many of their members. Miss Chambers’s former compatriots were in the BSAA, as I recall, so if they responded, the rescue forces would have experience on their side. But who knows how long it would take to mobilize.

We kept walking for what seemed like forever. Tense silence hung over our trip. At one point, Nick asked whether I had any clue who’d done this, given I seemed to know more about bioweapons compared to the others, but I had no satisfactory answer for him. Umbrella remnants? That didn’t make sense. Why would they attack Terragrigia?

“It was probably that creepy gas mask poet,” Cyndi mused.

“That does make sense, now that you mention it,” Nick answered.

“Hmm. So…which circle of Hell are we in again?” I asked, trying to provide comic relief. It didn’t work.

More walking. The sun was beginning its descent. I hoped we would get inside the airport and into someplace safe before nightfall. Soon, a few signs and buildings clued us in that we were indeed approaching the airport. Though none of us said anything, the group quickened our pace. Presently, we saw some more wreckage ahead in the tunnel, right past the landing terminal into the airport. The entire area was destroyed. Very little remained of the tunnel and the entrance into the airport besides the floor. I mumbled that we should be able to get inside without issue when I noticed something. Movement.

Rita and I simultaneously held up a hand. The group stopped and we crouched down – not that there was anything to crouch behind – and stared uneasily at the wreckage up ahead. It soon became clear the movement was a person, stumbling through the wreckage, running toward us.

“It’s Tom!”

He looked quite the worse for wear. As he got closer, I saw a look of pure terror on his face. Even in the situation we were in, I felt nothing but a small sense of satisfaction that Tom looked so messed up, combined with some regret that we’d run into him again. I briefly wondered whether that made me a terrible person – he was one of our classmates, after all. I didn’t have much more time to ponder this before Tom got to us.

“You guys. You made it. There’s…there’s this monster. She’s…she’s chasing me.”

I looked past Tom, toward the wreckage. Right on cue, another figure appeared – humanoid, not a Hunter – moving toward us with a stumbling, yet swift and steady gait.

“We need to get inside,” I said.

“It’s too late! She’s too close to the entrance!”

It continued its approach, allowing us to see its features more clearly. It looked like a human girl, though its face was deformed horrifically. Besides that, it was covered in some sort of slimy substance and its hands were grotesquely enlarged with some sort of spiked finger appendages. It fit no description of anything Miss Chambers had described, except maybe leech-men? But no, leech-men didn’t have human features; they just looked humanoid, and Miss Chambers mentioned they were controlled by that opera-singing leech Marcus guy…whom she killed back in 1998.

“Wait…that necklace…” Nick pointed. “It’s Myrtle’s.”

I turned to Tom. “What exactly happened to –”

“You…you left me…how could you…lover…” the creature spoke in a creepy, almost singing monotone. We began backing up.

“Don’t listen to her. It’s a monster. I saw Myrtle get ripped to shreds by a Hunter. It broke into the room after you guys left. I got so mad I tackled it and punched it in the face until it died, then I made my escape here. Somewhere along the line this thing started stalking me.”

“Liar… _liar_ …” the creature continued to speak with that eerie tone. It had slowed down and seemed completely fixated on Tom.

Tom’s story was laughably ridiculous. The notion of a regular, untrained human punching a Hunter to death was hilarious. The hotel room showed zero signs of any struggle and the spot where we’d left Myrtle wasn’t exactly smeared with blood when we’d arrived. I was also quite certain the bioweapons anyone manufactured wouldn’t randomly steal necklaces from the people they were attacking. Had we not been facing down whatever the Myrtle-thing was, I would’ve gladly called him out…but I had more pressing issues.

“That thing definitely looks like Myrtle,” Rita mumbled. She turned to me. “Any insight into what to do about this?”

“Well,” I said sarcastically. “Tom beat a Hunter to death, right? He should easily be able to take this thing. Let’s have him fight it.”

The creature giggled. “Come to me… _come here…_ my love…”

“Why does she keep calling Tom that?” Amy asked. “Did the city get hit by a slut-virus?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s because Tom and Myrtle were sleeping together before this.”

“How the hell do _you_ know that?!” Tom yelled.

Before I could respond, Myrtle lurched forward, raised her left hand, and swiped at Tom. Tom dove to the side, behind Cyndi, and Myrtle raised her right hand to try again. As her hand fell toward Cyndi, Amy suddenly rushed up and swung at Myrtle.

“Get away from her, you bitch!” Her fist connected with Myrtle’s hand and Myrtle staggered back. Amy advanced and swung again, which Myrtle blocked with her other hand. Myrtle staggered back again and her arms fell limply to her sides. Her head slumped forward and she stumbled in place.

“She’s stunned!” Amy screamed. “Now!”

The trio rushed up to Myrtle and began raining blows on her. She collapsed to the ground before I reminded everyone that now would be a great time to run away.

We fled toward the airport terminal. “Careful on the glass,” I panted, as we ran into the airport.

“Departures, right?” Rita asked as we entered the long hall that connected to the sky-tram. “To the right. Go!”

The floor was, again, littered with dead bodies and puddles of blood that we needed to hop around. Presently we saw a souvenir shop and Rita pointed us in its direction. We ran inside and quickly glanced around, hoping for no threats. Besides a few more dead bodies, nothing jumped out at us.

After I caught my breath, I turned to Amy. “I’m not going to lie; that was awesome. How’d you know to hit her hands, anyway?”

“…I didn’t. Is that a thing with these things?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. It seemed to work really well, at any rate.”

“We should clean our hands,” Cyndi mumbled. She grabbed a nearby sweater and wiped her hands on it. The rest of the trio followed suit. I suggested using the alcohol wipes in the first-aid kit just to make sure they were disinfected, and they complied.

I found a spot of wall to lean against to catch my breath. The trio was busy cleaning up. Nick and Jay were sitting on the floor near a rack of stuffed animals. Tom was in the back, against the counter, with Daisy on his arm. I wasn’t entirely sure whether that or exhaustion were the reason Jay looked even more downtrodden than he’d been the entire trip. I found myself regretting not dissuading Jay from coming along. Because of my sense of “fairness,” he had to suffer Tom’s presence while also getting caught in a bioterror attack.

“We’re done,” Rita said. “Let’s plan our next move. I guess we should head to one of the gates? We’ll be able to see out and hopefully make it outside when help arrives.”

“That makes sense. I guess we’ll need to get to a security checkpoint so we can get to the gates,” Cyndi said. “Those are…where? On the first floor?”

“We could also go backwards, through where we exited after we landed. Something tells me the security guards won’t exactly care,” I pointed out.

“Good point,” Amy said. “That actually might be faster. We’re on the third floor and arrivals connect to the second floor.”

“Right. We ready?” Rita stood up.

Nick and Jay followed suit and we left the souvenir shop, glancing around uneasily as we did so. As I was looking for signs to point us to the second floor, I saw movement back the way we came. Turning, my eyes widened as I watched one of the bodies begin twitching and rising to its feet. As it rose, thick slime flowed slowly off its body – just like the substance that covered Myrtle when she’d attacked us earlier.

“Guys…we should run. Now.”

The group needed no further push and we took off down the hall, passing more bodies as we did so. I didn’t stop to see whether these would get up, either. It didn’t really matter. It also didn’t matter what exactly these things were mutating into – they didn’t seem to be zombies, nor did I remember anything about slime from what Miss Chambers had told me. Granted, she probably didn’t tell me every detail that night on the phone.

“There! The escalator! Left!”

We turned sharply to the left and ran down the descending escalator. As we emerged on the second floor, a few more reanimated slimy corpses began shambling toward us. Before we could react, a loud growl sounded to the side and a Hunter leapt out, ripping the nearest creature apart.

“…The gates are that way!” Nick spoke, panting, looking directly at the Hunter. It hadn’t seemed to notice us, instead focused on attacking whatever slime things it could see.

“We can’t go that way! Quickly, back up!” I said, turning.

“Did you forget we were running from these things upstairs? We need to go down a floor. It’s the only way that isn’t blocked!” Amy said, turning heel and running toward the next set of escalators. We followed, sprinting down to the first floor, where we beheld even more carnage.

The doors out into the streets were completely broken and, in some cases, off their hinges. The handful of Hunters around the room left little wonder as to why. More of the slimy people – some sporting large pincers, others sporting some sort of gun-thing – were lumbering about, fighting the Hunters.

“Come on, behind the chairs,” I whispered, pointing to a waiting area behind the escalator. We scurried over and scanned the area. Luckily, nothing seemed to have noticed us as the Hunters and whatever mutated things were present were busy trying to kill one another. I assumed the slimy things were infected people, based on Myrtle’s appearance from before, but it never occurred to me that the Hunters would still be attacking the infected.

“How are we supposed to get past these things? Security’s way over there,” Nick whispered. I looked over to where he was pointing, off to our left. Directly in front of us was a check-in area, stocked with kiosks and counters. Most of the fighting was in front of the security checkpoint, which I guess made sense. I could imagine more people were there, waiting to get through security, compared to the number of people checking in at this particular airline.

I looked further in to the security checkpoint. There seemed to be fewer Hunters and mutated people beyond the metal detectors, likely because the checkpoint was also serving as a chokepoint.

Metal detectors. That gave me an idea.

“Which one of you has the best aim? When throwing?” I asked.

“Probably Tom. He’s a football player, right?” Nick answered.

I sighed. “I need someone to take one of the metal posts holding up the dividers and chuck it into one of the metal detectors. The noise will serve as a distraction. In the meantime, we run behind the counters and use the baggage chute to get out of here. Hopefully, they lead onto the tarmac.”

“Are you insane? I’m not going out there.” Tom said, giving me a bewildered look.

I had honestly had enough of him, but before I could respond, Jay sighed beside me and said he’d do it.

“Like your scrawny ass can even _lift_ one of those posts,” Tom smirked.

“I’ll just use that signpost,” Jay said irritably. He looked around, then snuck over to a sign sporting a flyer advertising something or other. He picked it up, took a deep breath, and threw it directly at the security checkpoint. It landed right onto one of the mutated slimy things and clattered into a metal detector.

The alarm went off, screeching across the room. I snuck a look to my right, on the side opposite the security checkpoint. The Hunters had stopped their attack and were turning toward the sound. Snarling, one by one they ran and leapt toward the metal detector. Some of the mutated people they were fighting lumbered after them, while others just stood around.

“Give them a few seconds,” I said, watching closely. Once most of whatever had decided to move toward the metal detector had done so, I motioned with a hand and we took off toward the counters. The trio arrived first, glanced around, and crawled into one of the baggage chutes. I followed, with Nick and Jay close behind. I assume Tom and Daisy followed them.

We crawled along the chute – the conveyor belt had stopped moving – and emerged into a wider room with various chutes leading out. Abandoned luggage sat in neat piles near each exit. Without missing a beat, Rita chose one of the chutes and crawled in. The rest of us followed.

After an eternity of crawling through the dark, we finally emerged outside. The belt led to a ramp, which led down onto the tarmac. Various ground equipment surrounded us. I pointed to one of the baggage carts and said we should hide in there. It would give us cover (and shelter).

Rita nodded, walked over, and unceremoniously began tossing luggage out of the cart. After we’d emptied it, we all crawled in. It was a tight fit, though none of us complained. I surmised Tom wanted to complain, but I guess he made a good decision for once and elected to shut up.

I backed up against a corner. The tarmac was quiet as night fell. I couldn’t see back into the airport, nor did I have any particular wish to. I closed my eyes, wondering if I could drift off to sleep. Despite the heightened stress, I was absolutely exhausted. I’d spent more physical energy this day than I thought I had in me. Ever.

I didn’t fall asleep, though. Time went on. None of us spoke. Off in the distance I could still hear sirens and alarms. Had I been able to see, I probably would have beheld a city ablaze against the night sky.

Hours passed. The trio had fallen asleep together. Daisy was awake with her head on Tom’s shoulder – Tom seemed to be asleep. Nick and Jay were next to me and the quarters were too cramped for me to see them. Outside, a soft breeze blew across the cloth covering the baggage cart. It carried a faint smell of smoke.

More hours passed. I began seeing light peek in from outside. And…I heard something. Instantly alert, I shook the people I could reach awake.

“Do you hear that?” I whispered.

“Some sort of wind?” Nick answered.

“No…it’s regular. It’s a helicopter,” Jay said.

“Are rescue forces here?” I asked. “That’s impossible – the attack started yesterday. That would be insanely fast mobilization.”

Amy crawled over and poked her head out the cart, looking out toward the runways. She pulled back. “There _are_ a few helicopters inbound. They’re out over the sea, so they’re not coming from the city.”

“What if it’s more terrorists?” I asked.

“What, are they transporting monsters _via_ helicopter now?” Nick answered.

I thought to myself I was grateful for my friends being blunt to me as Rita looked outside. “Those don’t look like cargo helicopters. Let’s stay put. Wait until they get close and we’ll see what to do.”

Squished in the cart, I couldn’t see outside, but the sound of helicopter blades became clearer and clearer, until they were unmistakable, then grew louder and louder until they seemed deafening. Rita said something that I couldn’t make out, but she then began to exit the cart. The rest of the trio followed and I finally had enough room to move. I joined the others outside the cart, shielding my eyes against the bright morning sun, and looked over at the landing helicopters. There were 3 of them – brown and unmarked. Once they’d touched down, the doors slid open and a handful of armed soldiers leapt out, scattering to secure a perimeter. One of them saw us and pointed, yelling something at his compatriots. I tensed, still unsure whether these troops were friendly or not, but Nick began waving his arms wildly above his head, screaming, “Help us!”

I grabbed his arm and told him to be careful, but he turned to me and pointed at the soldier. “His armband. It says ‘FBC.’ They’re here to help us!”

Nick had way better eyesight compared to my own. I relaxed…and then all hell broke loose.

Glass shattered behind us and Hunters began leaping out of the building. I realized the noise from the landing helicopters must’ve attracted them. The FBC soldier waved his arm, telling us to run toward him, and we complied. He and the other soldiers fell back to their helicopters and began shooting at the approaching Hunters, though none fired in our direction. I surmised they wanted us out of the way before they started shooting at the ones directly behind us.

Jay was in the lead, followed by Tom dragging Daisy along. Nick was close behind, then the trio, and I took up the rear. As we approached the nearest helicopter, Jay stumbled on something and Tom grabbed him, threw him backwards onto the ground, and clambered up onto the helicopter with Daisy. The soldier moved forward and pushed Nick onto the helicopter next and another soldier emerged from the helicopter to assist the trio, who turned back toward Jay, alarmed. I slowed and bent down to help Jay up, reaching my hand down.

He batted my hand away.

“What? What are you doing? We need to go, _now_!”

Jay turned toward me, his expression one of emptiness. “Just go without me,” he murmured.

“Are you insane?!”

He looked back at the helicopter, at Daisy still on Tom’s arm, and looked back at me. I shook my head. “She’s not worth it! She’s not worth _this_! You need to –”

A Hunter – I guess the one right behind us – suddenly leapt right into us. With one swipe, Jay’s head fell onto the ground and his lifeless, headless body crumpled in front of me. It took me a second to register what had happened and I stumbled down to the ground. My world went quiet and time slowed.

My heart beat once. Jay’s head rolled away from me, blood trailing from his severed neck.

My heart beat again. I turned, slightly, and the Hunter was right there, only centimeters from my face, staring at me, snarling, raising its arm for another strike. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t react. I just stared.

A shot rang out through the air. Then another. The Hunter staggered and crashed to the ground. I just looked at it without reaction. Dimly I was aware of somebody hauling me up and dragging me back to the helicopter, but by then my surroundings had become a blur and my senses were completely numb.

I don’t quite know what happened next. I think we stayed in the helicopter for some time while the FBC forces continued securing the area. Eventually, some planes arrived, they carted us onto one and, after more waiting, carted more survivors from within the city in with us. I paid little attention to my surroundings. All I could see, even safely within that plane, surrounded by FBC troops, was my decapitated friend and the vicious Hunter staring me in the face.

Dimly, I was aware of the plane taking off, of my friends around me, and eventually of landing. People – armed and unarmed, uniformed and not – entered the plane and escorted us off, one by one. They either carried me off or I robotically followed my friends off. I’m not sure. Once I had disembarked, they put me on a stretcher and rolled me into a building.

As they pushed me through the building, I heard a familiar voice grow louder and its owner approached. And before I knew it, Miss Chambers was looking down at me, screaming at me, telling me how glad she was that I was alive.

**Finale: The Terragrigia Panic, Part IV (Rebecca), June 2004**

“You…care?”

He’d only said two words when I found him on the stretcher, his voice slow and full of wonder. Was it whatever he’d gone through in Terragrigia? Or did he remember the day I’d kicked him out of my life? Maybe it was both. I stood back, stunned, and the TerraSave nurse told me he’d be in good hands before pushing him further into the facility.

I left the facility and walked onto the landing zone. BSAA and TerraSave members were running around all over the place, registering the newly arrived survivors and sending them to appropriate treatment zones. It was the first time I’d seen them in action first-hand, which I suppose was a good thing, as this was the first act of bioterrorism they’d had to respond to in their entire history.

“Rebecca!”

I turned to see Claire jogging up to me. “Did you find him?”

“…Yeah. He’s…I don’t know. Stunned?”

“We’ll take care of him,” Claire responded. “Don’t worry.”

She pointed to a small group of teenagers and said, “Those are the people he was traveling with. I talked with some of them. Apparently he and one of his friends got attacked by a Hunter. Only he survived, but I’m sure it was pretty traumatic for him anyway.”

I was quiet.

“Anyway, we could use your help. I’ll have you report to the triage center.”

I nodded and Claire pointed me to an adjacent building before heading off. I looked at the group she’d pointed out. One of them, a muscular guy with a petite girl holding his arm, was saying something while laughing. I wondered how anyone could be laughing in his situation and turned toward the triage center, but not before one of the girls – not the one on his arm, but one with a taller girl and a shorter girl flanking her, stood up and yelled, “I. Have had enough. Of your _bullshit_!” Then she delivered a backhand across the muscular guy’s face that I could hear from all the way where I was.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to react to that, so I continued on into the triage center. There weren’t many people needing attention in the center; I assumed more would be arriving as rescue efforts continued. As I worked, I watched the others in the room. Some were more confident with their skills than others were. Some were better at reassuring the patients, while others went about their duties mechanically. But something jumped out at me – every last person in the room providing care to the survivors was focused and determined. These were all volunteers. They were here simply because they wanted to help combat bioterrorism. It was hard not to feel inspired by all the energy and effort before me.

I finished and asked about whether or not anyone had taken samples from the survivors’ belongings for analysis. We needed to study whatever virus they’d unleashed on Terragrigia to develop any countermeasures. They hadn’t, as they were focused on providing first-aid, but with the patients stable, I organized them into teams to collect as many samples as they could. It was my turn, I suppose, to do what Professor Maple’s lab did for me in 1998.

We finished and I went out to look for Claire and ask about any lab equipment we might have. It took me awhile to find her, as she seemed to be running around organizing all of TerraSave’s efforts in the base. Eventually I caught her and she directed me to the BSAA labs, where I went, organized the technicians there, and began setting up. They seemed taken aback that a stranger had just shown up and begun giving them directions, but then Claire popped her head in, told them to shut up and listen to me, then disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.

Over the next few days, I continued providing medical attention to the survivors (plus the trickle of more people evacuating from Terragrigia) and analyzing what we could from anything recovered from the evacuees. The BSAA continued monitoring the situation in Terragrigia, trying to piece together what had happened. The director of the BSAA, Clive O’Brian, called me to a meeting (having heard about how I’d taken over the BSAA labs) to discuss what we knew so far.

“Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot,” he began. “The terrorist group Il Veltro has since claimed responsibility for the attack. It seems they are operating out of a number of ships in the Mediterranean, but we don’t know how many, nor do we know where and how they obtained these ships. We know they released a new virus, termed the t-Abyss, into the city _via_ unmanned aerial vehicles – we assume they launched these from their ships. Finally, their primary method of attack has been an army of Hunters, first released into the tourist sector. From there, they’ve since spread out throughout the city. This is about all we know so far.”

“This doesn’t add up,” I said. The room turned to look at me. “From my analysis, this t-Abyss is derived from the t-virus that hit Raccoon City. There are some major differences that we’re still trying to discern, but the t-Abyss, like the t-virus, isn’t airborne. Why would Veltro disperse the virus from UAVs?”

“We’ve been investigating rumors of a black market for bioweapons ever since Umbrella’s fall,” O’Brian responded. “If Veltro simply purchased these bioweapons, it stands to reason they don’t know the biology like you would.”

“Even with this black market, someone had to develop this virus. From what I can tell so far, the mutations associated with the t-Abyss seem…aquatic in nature. In other words, this virus is very well-suited to attacking something like Terragrigia, a floating city in the middle of the Mediterranean.”

“So…someone made this virus specifically to attack Terragrigia, but that someone isn’t Veltro, because Veltro doesn’t seem to understand how to spread this virus properly,” a bald man with a nasal voice piped up.

“Exactly. Moving forward, I’m also surprised at how quickly the FBC responded. Claire got a call Tuesday night about the attack. By Wednesday night, this base wasn’t even fully staffed yet since she and you were still calling people in, but the FBC had already gained a foothold in Terragrigia and evacuated a group of survivors.” I paused. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy they did. I just wonder how a task force based in the United States could hear about this attack, deploy forces across the Atlantic Ocean, and gain a foothold within the span of 1 day. Back when I was in STARS, it took a few _weeks_ to deploy us into the Arklay Mountains to investigate the first t-virus outbreak…and the Arklays are right outside the city.”

“Not to mention their timing is impeccable,” O’Brian said, in a musing voice. “By the time the FBC arrived, the Hunters had mostly moved on to other parts of the city. The bioweapons they encountered when landing in the tourist sector were only a fraction of what initially hit the area.”

“Sounds like that first group of survivors really lucked out,” said a taller man with a short beard.

I was quiet. Yes, they’d been incredibly lucky to make it out of there alive. I had my suspicions, as I’d expressed, but I was very grateful.

“I think regardless, we need more information,” O’Brian said. “I’m assembling a task force to accompany me to Terragrigia. If I call your name, prepare for deployment. Rebecca, I’ll have to ask you to continue your lab analysis.”

I looked down. “I…I actually need to get back to school,” I said. “I came here on very short notice. I’m sure the technicians can continue without me. They know what to do now.”

O’Brian nodded. “Thank you, then. Safe journeys.”

He picked up a clipboard and began giving out orders as I stood up and left the room. I walked through the base, looking for Claire, again amazed by how dedicated everyone around me was. Claire’s words during dinner that night stuck with me – a handful of police officers and herself had managed to fight off a mega-corporation’s most advanced bioweapons. Now that more people knew about the threat of bioterrorism – now that more and more people were joining the cause to defeat it…at that moment, I felt some semblance of hope. Ironically, it took a major bioterror attack to make me see that humanity could and _would_ triumph in the end.

After I returned home, I spent time organizing my graduate research and called a meeting with my PI to discuss how to translate my data to publication. Yes, evil supervillains could use my work to make pathogens if it got out there, but I’d seen first-hand that many people on our side existed too, who would benefit from my work when combating those pathogens.

I became friendlier to my colleagues. I worked harder, I think, which was somewhat counterintuitive as part of my problem before was spending too much time at work, but this time I went after my research with renewed faith in its purpose. People all around me whispered amongst themselves, wondering what had changed in me. I never explained any of this to them, and over time, nobody seemed to care.

Finally, I asked to start those tutoring sessions back up. I still didn’t think he needed tutoring, but it was nice to meet up once a week again. Gradually, we started talking about more mundane matters, rather than strictly focusing on studying. In the end, Claire was right. The humanity in my life…was the most important part of all.


	2. War

**Part 1 (MC): Let the Past Bury its Dead, June 2005**

We’d mostly arrived at the same time and we walked through the cemetery together, in silence: the trio, Nick, and myself. Exactly one year ago, today, we found ourselves facing death on the other side of the world. And we’d made it back. At the time – well, after I’d somewhat recovered from my almost catatonic state – I marveled at how fortunate we’d been to survive. Recently, the explosive news that the head of the FBC, Morgan Lansdale, had actually orchestrated the Terragrigia Panic explained some of that luck. He’d provided the bioweapons and equipment to Il Veltro, but had told Veltro to disperse the virus _via_ air (thus diminishing its impact – the virus wasn’t airborne). He’d instructed Veltro to deploy Hunters into the tourist sector and then fan out into the rest of the city, meaning the Hunters were mostly attacking the rest of Terragrigia when the FBC landed at the airport; moreover, the FBC didn’t have to contend with a full-on viral outbreak as Veltro hadn’t dispersed the virus properly. It also explained how the FBC had responded so quickly – Lansdale knew ahead of time what would happen.

A few weeks after our rescue, he then ordered the orbiting satellite that powered Terragrigia to reconfigure, focusing solar power onto the city and destroying it. It was a clever ploy to get rid of any evidence while ostensibly taking drastic measures to “contain” the outbreak.

Miss – I mean _Doctor_ Chambers now – told me that 2 of her former teammates from STARS, who’d founded the BSAA, had been the ones to expose Lansdale. Apparently, Lansdale’s motivation was to provide a reason for increasing the funding and authority of the FBC and, ironically, he succeeded – in increasing the funding and authority of the BSAA, since he was promptly arrested and the FBC merged into the BSAA afterward.

I mumbled that I hate politics and she agreed. She and I went on to talk about other things, like how we were both headed to Bear University in a few months – she was beginning her post-doctoral studies advising the BSAA, which had a research facility there collaborating with the school, while I was starting college. I liked to think she chose that location because I would be there, but I knew that was silly.

The five of us slowed down as we approached George’s and Myrtle’s graves. Neither of them actually had bodies buried beneath the tombstones, since their bodies were never recovered. I surmised that even if the FBC troops had encountered Myrtle’s body, they wouldn’t have recognized it.

Rita lay down some flowers. None of us said anything. In my mind, I had never forgiven Myrtle for her affair with Tom, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to insult her memory or interrupt our solemn gathering. I wondered how George had died and what he was thinking of when Veltro’s attack first hit the harbor. Was he wondering where Myrtle was? Did he die ignorant of what she was doing behind his back? I hoped so. I hoped he had peace when he went.

We continued on toward Jay’s grave next. Only the sounds of our quiet footsteps and a slight breeze accompanied our approach. Like those of Myrtle’s and George’s, Jay’s grave contained no body. The troops at the airport hadn’t bothered collecting his corpse after saving me, which was understandable, considering that wasn’t their mission. Trying to collect every fallen body in Terragrigia would’ve been lunacy. Periodically, I still had flashbacks to that moment the Hunter decapitated him, right next to me, with a single swipe, that moment Death itself stared me in the face. The other day I saw a video of an alligator (or was it a crocodile?) opening and closing its jaws and I almost had a panic attack. It would probably take a long time for me to heal from my experience.

Unlike with George, I knew exactly how much peace Jay had when he died. None. _I should’ve told him not to come with us_ , I thought. Again and again, I wished I could return to before the trip, when we talked briefly about Daisy. _You don’t need to come if you don’t want to_ , I remember saying to him. _But you have more of a right to be there than Tom does_.

He’d sighed and quietly said he’d rather not waste the plane ticket and hotel reservation. And I had left it at that. I should’ve just told him to stay home.

We stopped in front of Jay’s grave. Rita put down more flowers and again, we were quiet. I’d heard that Daisy had finally broken up with Tom. He had decided to bring an entire group of girls with him to Prom, including her, and she’d decided that was too much. She didn’t seem to mind knowing that he was cheating on her during our trip, never leaving his side after we ran into each other going into the airport, but she reacted to that. I didn’t know why, nor did I really care. 

“Would’ve been great hanging out with you after graduation,” Nick whispered. “All of us, together, talking about how much ass we were gonna kick going off to college.”

Nobody else said anything. I wasn’t entirely sure what to say, if anything. Presently we turned to leave and I was surprised to see Daisy walking toward us, carrying flowers in her arms as well.

“Hey, you guys,” she said, softly.

I didn’t answer her, instead looking at her coolly before walking past her and continuing out of the cemetery. Anger, guilt, sorrow…a bunch of emotions whirled in my head and I wished I could dispel them. I wished I could time travel back to talk Jay out of coming to Terragrigia with us. I wished I could time travel back to when the Hunters first appeared, and I wished I had some sort of superhuman powers where I could slaughter the bioweapons myself. But as I walked away, I remembered what Dr. Chambers had told me when I’d vented my frustrations:

“You can’t do any of that. Nobody can. But you _can_ learn, and excel, and grow to fight off bioterrorism just like you said you would back when you called me that night. You _will_. You just need to have faith…we both…need to have faith.”

**Part 2 (Rebecca): First Blood, June 2005**

I cleared out a spot for Jill to sit down. She looked around my office as she did so and I wondered whether she would comment on how messy it was. I hadn’t really bothered to tidy up – I spent most of my time in the lab area, anyway.

“What’ve you got for me?”

I pulled up a few files on my computer. “Let’s start at the beginning. Based on some loose files I found back in the Umbrella Training Facility…way back during my first mission, I know there’s some sort of original virus Umbrella discovered that they used as a base to make the t-virus. What this original virus is or what it does, I don’t know. I do know that the first t-virus was created by combining it with leech DNA, courtesy of mad scientist James Marcus. We currently know of 3 descendants of the t-virus: the G-virus that Claire encountered when Raccoon City was overrun, the t-Veronica virus that Claire encountered in Antarctica, and the t-Abyss virus that Veltro used on Terragrigia.”

Jill nodded. “Okay, go on.”

“Of these three, we have the most information about the t-Abyss by far. Besides what Leon, Claire, and Chris wrote down from experience, we know next to nothing about how the other two viruses work. But based on the t-Abyss vials you recovered and the files we took from the FBC, I was able to reverse-engineer a few genetic traits of the t-virus. See, the t-Abyss was made by combining t-virus genetic code with a known pathogen discovered in deep-sea fish, so by elucidating differences between t-Abyss genetics and the genome of the known pathogen…”

I pulled up a few more diagrams and schematics. “The analysis is still difficult. One thing I’ve figured out thus far is the t-virus is very…adaptable. It can infect different organisms and, if combined with other viruses, it easily gains new capabilities.”

“Well, we’ve seen…let’s see, monkeys, sharks, bats, snakes, spiders…”

I shuddered. “Exactly. It also makes vaccine development very difficult – we’d need to target something fundamental about the virus rather than examine its mutations or descendants. Otherwise, there’s always a high likelihood a subsequent outbreak will simply feature a new strain that renders a vaccine useless. For instance, the medication you used in Raccoon City likely wouldn’t work on the t-Abyss or even on a t-virus outbreak today.”

“So…what are your next steps?”

“Well,” I said, sighing. “I’ll continue what I’ve been doing. My main goal right now is to characterize as much about the original t-virus as I can – structure, genetic code, anything – and see if I can find something to base a vaccine or treatment on. And that’s…”

I trailed off and looked at Jill, who returned my gaze with a quizzical expression. “What?”

“Uhh, well, it’d be nice if…I mean…”

Jill gave me a confused side-eye and said, “What, are you trying to ask me out?”

“What?! No! Of course not!”

“Then what’s with the tongue-tied awkwardness? Spit it out already,” Jill said, laughing.

“You got infected back in Raccoon City, and there’re probably antibodies in your blood, which would have some sort of motif specific to the t-virus’s outer structure, so…”

Jill laughed again. “That’s it? You want a blood sample from me? That’s what you were so nervous about asking?”

I looked away sheepishly. “I mean…I don’t want to treat you like a lab rat. Also, capitalizing on you having gotten infected seems…”

Jill rolled her eyes. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll say you owe me. _Big_.” She leaned close, facetiously narrowing her eyes, before losing control and bursting into more laughter.

I sighed, then said, “Thanks, Jill.”

“Anytime, Rebecca. It’s…good to have all of us working together again. I really think the BSAA is going to make a difference. We’re going to fight back.”

“The fact that the head of the FBC was himself a bioterrorist worries me, though,” I said, as I rose and led Jill down the hall toward the lab. “Besides the obvious question of whom we can trust, people’s opinion of the anti-bioterror groups just took a hit. We can’t afford to lose support.”

“Playing espionage games is Director O’Brian’s job,” Jill said. “I know that all too well.”

“I thought he was stepping down.”

“…Okay, playing espionage games is the job of whomever takes over after him,” Jill answered. “In all seriousness, though, the reason Chris and I wanted someone to direct the BSAA besides us was for precisely this problem – theatricality and deception aren’t things we specialize in. We remembered Wesker and Irons and decided we needed someone more suited to that kind of thing.”

I swiped my card to enter the lab and Jill continued. “Speaking of deception, this reminds me of back during the Raccoon Trials where someone on the Internet kept posting articles about how Umbrella made a bioweapon designed to shrink penises so they could no longer function. I doubt that was true, but I definitely remember hearing a bunch of guys decide to avoid all Umbrella products ‘just in case.’”

I looked at Jill and grumbled, “I have my suspicions as to who that was.”

I sat Jill down, prepared her arm, and drew the blood. Though research was slow, as it usually was, I shared Jill’s sentiment and was glad I was finally able to apply my skills to combat these viruses directly.

**Part 3 (MC): From the Ashes We Fall, January 2006**

I stretched and groggily turned off my alarm clock. Spring semester definitely began more intensely compared to the previous semester and I was already feeling the weight. I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom to go through my morning routine, waving hi at my hallmates as I did so.

First semester at Bear University had gone nicely. I’d made a few friends and dove right in to classes and extracurriculars. I tried continuing kendo, but decided I was never going to be fit enough and dropped it. On the other hand, I continued practicing archery. Besides one or two social organizations, I decided to join a new club on campus: the Society of the Phoenix, which was formed after receiving some grant money from TerraSave dedicated to restoring Terragrigia. Obviously, a few college students weren’t going to repeat the marvel of engineering that built the city in the first place, but college design teams building some relatively simple technologies were fairly common.

I was part of the biosensor project, where we were trying to design a device or procedure to help determine whether the ruins of Terragrigia still posed an infectious risk to people. Originally I thought I’d contribute on a molecular biology level, considering what Dr. Chambers had taught me since 1998, but I quickly grew to love the physics and engineering that went into the project. Over the course of a semester, I’d decided to major in bioengineering as a result, possibly marking the first time in my life I was learning something Dr. Chambers herself hadn’t learned.

I finished my morning routine, got dressed, and began heading out. As I exited the dormitory, a blast of freezing wind greeted me and I winced. The icy Northeast was a far cry from the warm and humid South. I steeled myself and began walking toward central campus, where all the classes were held.

Bear University was fairly large in size, but navigating was pretty easy given campus was organized into zones. The dorms stretched from the west to the north while all the administrative buildings were in the northeast. Classes were in the center and melded into the research zone, which occupied the eastern area of campus. South of the research zone (southeastern campus) held all the sports facilities. In the southern end of campus sat Ursa Quad, surrounded by various common buildings, such as dining halls and theatres. Beyond Ursa Quad to the south was a small college town with apartment buildings and restaurants. Dr. Chambers lived there.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to my first class of the day. Today was going to be a packed day: classes in the morning and early afternoon, an interview for an undergraduate research position in the later afternoon, and finally a Society of the Phoenix meeting toward the evening. And then, of course, I had a bunch of homework I hadn’t yet started on.

Class flew by before I could fully grasp the material, as usual, and I shuffled to my next one, which was the same. A third class later and I began the trek east to the research zone. Soon I reached Barney Road, which stretched from the northern edge of campus all the way to the stadium in the southeast, nicely dividing the class halls from the research zone proper. As I crossed the road, I thought to myself how annoying it must be for drivers on campus – pedestrians were constantly moving to and fro on the street and many paid little attention to traffic lights.

I turned left and walked up Barney Road toward Power Road, which ran from the dorms in the west all the way to the eastern edge of campus. I’d never been to the research zone before, not counting the initial tours of campus where I had no idea where I was anyway, but from the map I’d consulted a few days ago, the bioengineering building, Tycoon Hall, was at the northern end of the research zone, right up against Power Road.

I reached Power Road, turned right, and kept going. From the corner, Tycoon Hall was the third building on my right. I looked for an entrance and walked inside into a large lobby. The glass doors and windows behind me, as well as a matching set of doors and windows on the other side, let ample sunlight in, giving the building a bright and energetic atmosphere. A large central staircase wound up from the side of the room, disappearing into a balcony above. I paid it little heed, as my destination was on the first floor, and it took me a few more minutes of searching before I found it and entered.

“Ah, you’re the new prospective undergrad, I take it? I’m Cidney.” A middle-aged woman rose from her seat and extended a hand. I introduced myself and she asked me to wait awhile while she finished something on the microscope in front of her chair.

“You’re a freshman, right? Is this your first time in this part of campus?”

“Yeah, actually.”

“That’s unsurprising. I hope you found your way without too much issue. I once had a student walk all the way to Balamb Hall on the far side of the research zone – the eastern-most building on campus, if you’re unfamiliar – before realizing he’d gone too far.”

Cidney typed a few things and looked up. “Well, I’m done. Let me show you around.”

I followed. “Tycoon’s a newer building, though we’re attached to Narshe Hall, down that way upstairs” – she pointed down a hall that I think led westward. “They were initially just going to expand Narshe Hall, but we kind of pushed for a full-fledged facility for bioengineering. It worked well for us.”

She swiped into a neighboring lab. “Having all the research buildings together is nice. If you go outside, you’ll find Crystal Quad. Counterclockwise from here around Crystal Quad, you’ll reach Midgar Hall, the biology building; Baron Hall, the physics cluster of buildings; Zanarkand Hall, the computational core; and finally Alexandria Hall, where all the imaging equipment is – confocal, MRI, CT, _etc_.”

She sat down. “So, tell me. What kind of research are you interested in?”

I sat down in front of her and began to respond when a poster on the wall caught my eye. It showed an incredibly large, detailed depiction of some sort of green lizard and a jolt of fear shot though me. My eyes widened, my throat closed, and I shuddered involuntarily. Cidney furrowed her brow, turned, and looked at the wall.

“What is it?”

“…Sorry…just…lizards and reptiles have that effect on me. I’m alright.”

“Hmm…we have that up because lizards regenerate so well. We do regenerative medicine research here, after all.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, making an effort to swallow my panic. I began expanding on my experiences in Raccoon City and in the Society of the Phoenix. We talked about a few potential projects before she ended the interview, saying she’d “get back to me.” I smiled, shook hands, and left, fully convinced that my miniature freak-out had ensured I would _not_ be getting this position. At any rate, this time I exited south onto a short set of stairs leading into Crystal Quad rather than north back onto Power Road. I crossed the quad and walked down the walkway between Baron and Zanarkand Halls to emerge onto Jurassic Road. This road ended where it hit Barney Road, as on the other side of Barney Road was the upper part of Ursa Quad.

I walked down Jurassic Road toward Ursa Quad, passing Cornelia Hall, the new nanotechnology facility nestled in the southwestern corner of the research zone. I’d heard stories about Cornelia Hall – it was the newest and most advanced building on campus, housing the university’s most state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. Undergraduates were strictly not allowed in the building and the doors were reinforced to prevent any unauthorized entry. In the event of a fire, Cornelia Hall had some sort of self-seal-off system to protect its equipment. I’d always wondered what they did in there, but…well, I wasn’t allowed into the building, so I supposed I’d never know.

I reached Ursa Quad and entered the first building on its northeastern corner – David’s Hall – where we were meeting. I walked into the café, sighed, and plopped down into a chair, finally getting some rest from walking all over campus. I still had some time before the meeting, so I opened my backpack and pulled out a problem set to work on when a shadow fell on the table.

“It’s been a long time,” a familiar, soft voice called my attention. I looked up and did a double-take.

“…Daisy?!”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m glad you recognize me.”

My surprise did nothing to dull my irritation at seeing Daisy again. All I could say was, “What are you doing here?”

She pulled out a chair and sat across from me. “I transferred. I’m starting here this semester.”

I looked at her with a slight quizzical expression before saying, “I didn’t think you the college type.”

She didn’t answer immediately, perhaps because she detected the subtle insult in my response. I looked back down toward my problem set when she spoke again.

“Maybe you could show me around campus? It’s so big.”

“Campus isn’t difficult to navigate. I’m sure you can find a map,” I said, without looking up.

“I guess so…” she said, slowly. “Anyway, the meeting’s here, right?”

That made me look back up at her. “You’re here for the Phoenix meeting?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What exactly do you think the Society of the Phoenix does?”

“Student projects aimed at restoring Terragrigia? Why are you asking that?”

“It’s just…if you know that, why are you here? What can someone like you possibly hope to contribute?” I said, not even bothering to hide the disdain in my voice.

She grimaced. “Listen…I know we didn’t really part on the best of terms, but I’ve been trying to put the past behind me. So please…”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “I lost one of my close friends in Terragrigia. He let a Hunter decapitate him because the girl he thought the world of would rather be with a guy who was cheating on her with another girl already in a relationship, a guy who unhesitatingly _left said girl to_ _die_ as soon as she became a burden, a guy who literally _pushed Jay to the ground_ while we were running from an army of monsters. You obviously have the right to date whomever you please, but I also reserve the right to think very little of you for what you chose. So don’t give me that crap.”

Before Daisy could respond, I saw Susan, the President of the Society of the Phoenix, walk up behind her. I waved Susan over.

“Susan, I’m not feeling well, so I’ll have to skip out today,” I said as she approached. “If you need anything from me…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Today’s mainly logistics anyway. And you…” she turned to Daisy. “You must be Daisy. I’m Susan.”

Daisy smiled her pretty, empty smile and shook hands with Susan. I packed my things and left.

**Part 4 (Rebecca): Evolution, October 2006**

I robotically pressed a few buttons to get the treadmill running and began warming up. I wore my old combat clothes, as I usually did while exercising, but today it only reminded me: Jill was dead.

Chris visited a few days ago. He wanted to talk to me personally. I hadn’t seen him in a long time – he had certainly built an astonishingly large amount of muscle mass, as Claire had mentioned awhile back, but when I saw him, his facial expression and body language was what stood out to me.

With a subdued tone, he told me what had happened. The BSAA received some intel that they’d finally located Ozwell Spencer, CEO of Umbrella, in his estate in Europe (I guess they didn’t think to look for Spencer _in one of his family’s own houses_ before this). They sent their two best agents – him and Jill – to go apprehend him. When they found him, he was already dead – and Albert Wesker was standing over his corpse.

I turned the treadmill’s speed up. After Chris had returned from Antarctica, what, 8 years ago? He had warned us all about Wesker returning; however, in these 8 years, nobody had seen him and he had seemingly done nothing. The BSAA had a few rumors that they didn’t think warranted investigation or, more likely, were too devoid of detail for any sort of action. And now he’d suddenly reappeared.

He hadn’t lost those superhuman traits Chris mentioned back then, either. He effortlessly beat both Chris and Jill, despite being unarmed, and would have killed Chris had Jill not tackled Wesker through a window. Both fell off the cliff the estate was situated on.

I turned the treadmill’s speed up again, breaking into a full run. After completing the raid on the estate, the BSAA sent more people in, but nobody recovered either of their bodies. Chris was ready to believe Jill had sacrificed himself to take out one of our old arch-nemeses, but I pointed out that the first time we saw Wesker “die,” he had been impaled by a Tyrant, so if he survived that, him surviving a fall off a cliff wasn’t out of the question. Jill, on the other hand…

I turned the treadmill’s speed up again, stabbing at the control panel with a finger. Chris had handed me whatever files he and the BSAA had recovered from Spencer’s estate, asking if I could do anything with them. They were certainly eye-opening, though the answer to Chris’s questions ended up being…no.

Spencer wrote very little about the biology of any of the viruses. It was pretty clear that the other 2 founders of Umbrella, Marcus and Ashford, were the scientists of the group. Spencer was, first and foremost, an eugenicist, who recovered a virus from a plant in Africa known as the Stairway to the Sun. This, which they dubbed “Progenitor,” was the virus Marcus mentioned in the Umbrella Training Facility – the one he combined with leech DNA to create the t-virus.

Progenitor had one of 3 effects when it infected a host. The most common was death. 10% of the population was naturally immune, so the infection would have no effect on them. Finally, there was the effect that Spencer was most interested in – in very rare cases, it gave the host superhuman abilities. He wrote at length about unleashing Progenitor on the world, killing the vast majority of humans, and raising the survivors as a genetically pure, superior population with himself as its god.

I turned the treadmill’s speed up again, forcefully pounding the control panel with my palm. Why Spencer anticipated being one of the people who would acquire superhuman abilities, given that it was so rare, was anybody’s guess. Even if he were simply immune, it stood to reason that whatever new superhumans to emerge from his plan wouldn’t see him as a god _at best_ – more likely, they would hunt him down and kill him for, you know, massacring their friends and loved ones with a virus. So not only was Spencer a disgusting eugenicist, but also he was delusional and stupid. Despite his idiocy, he had essentially caused every manufactured biohazard outbreak the world had seen since 1998 – up to and including the destruction of 2 major cities.

I still didn’t know why Spencer and Umbrella decided to modify Progenitor, either. Spencer’s files actually made very little mention of the t-virus, as it wasn’t his primary focus. From those few mentions, the t-virus was, essentially, a less stable and less lethal version of Progenitor. Instead of death, it either caused cannibalistic tendencies and necrosis (the zombies we faced) or no effect in 10% of the populace. Some of the notes mentioned that 1 in 10 million hosts of the t-virus would become a Tyrant, and I assume that same ratio held for Progenitor giving superhuman abilities. Rare indeed.

This also explains how Wesker got his abilities. He must be one of the 1 out of 10 million who would gain those abilities from Progenitor. And he was probably out there still. Doing _something_. Plotting. Being a threat to everything and everyone.

I slammed the treadmill’s speed to its highest setting. I was sprinting at this point. While Spencer’s files mentioned that 10% immune rate, he didn’t go much further into it. It confirms my suspicions that there is, in fact, some aspect of Progenitor and its descendants, something fundamental, that the human body could target and render the virus harmless. It was genetic, it seemed. But what was it? How would I, or anyone, even go about trying to figure out what gene or allele imparted this immunity, especially if I didn’t have any access to Progenitor? It seemed that the more information we obtained about Umbrella and its pathogens, the less I was able to do about it.

My thoughts turned back to Jill. She and I had bonded over leading lives where we were much younger compared to our peers. She was in the Delta Force in her early twenties – and people thought me graduating from college ~4 years earlier than normal was an accomplishment. She took time to teach me a few things, such as disabling locks of all kinds, and I remember her as an easygoing friend outside of work. Only 4 of us had gotten out of 1998 alive – and now we were 3.

I ran and ran, sweat pouring from my body, my old green and white combat boots slamming onto the track again and again. Finally, I slowed the treadmill down. I didn’t know exactly what to do at the moment, but I promised myself the raid would not be in vain. There was _something_ within 10% of the population that imparted immunity to Progenitor. The fact that I knew that now meant a cure _was possible_. I just had to figure out how to get there. Jill fought against bioterror with her field skills and lost, but I would continue the fight – in my own way, with every skill I had.

**Part 5 (MC): A Double-Edged Sword, October 2008**

The autumn breeze brushed my hair as I stepped onto the balcony. The weather would do its annual abrupt shift to winter soon, and I wanted to enjoy being outside while I still could. As I looked out over Crystal Quad, I noticed the flag at half-mast. 10 years ago today, Raccoon City was destroyed. The news broadcast, President Whitmore’s speech, and my phone call with Dr. Chambers all remained crisp memories for me. I’d promised her to fight bioterrorism that night. And…well, I have been.

The biosensor project was going very well in the Society of the Phoenix. This year, I was taking leadership, being the most senior…senior…on the team. We already had a few prototypes and they all had promise. Because they all utilized different mechanisms, I wanted to develop a protocol that used all of them to minimize false positives/negatives. A representative from a company known as Tlemsanix Technologies – this woman in Victorian-era clothes (?) who introduced herself as Alicia Hills – called us last month and expressed interest in buying the intellectual property. I actually decided I’d remain at Bear University for an extra year, picking up a Master’s degree, so I could stick around to see the device and project completed. Normally, a Master’s would take longer, but my tenure in Cidney’s lab gave me a considerable head start on any thesis project I’d embark on.

I was surprised when Cidney offered me a position, given my performance at the interview. She never mentioned my lock-up at the lizard poster, but then I had to deal with spending my lab time near that poster. I think it’s actually helped desensitize me – which is good, since I didn’t want to be jumping at every vaguely lizard-like picture or thing for the rest of my life. Then again, while that specific poster didn’t quite have an effect on me anymore (given I saw it daily), I was playing a video game the other day and an in-game lizard _still_ made my heart race.

I glanced at my phone and turned back into Tycoon Hall. I had one last thing in lab to finish, and then I was supposed to go over to Dr. Chambers’s lab to return a book I’d borrowed. I exited the lounge area, walked down the hall, and descended the elevator to the first floor. As I stepped out, I almost ran right into Daisy.

Daisy…had also joined Cidney’s lab. Somehow. Ever since she appeared at that Society of the Phoenix meeting, she had an irritating habit of following me around – not literally, but she’d decided she also wanted to major in bioengineering and, after 2 years, she asked to join Cidney’s lab. From what I understood, she was (unsurprisingly) struggling with the curriculum and, in fact, she would need to stay another year just to finish her undergraduate degree. Why she wanted to pursue a research position was bewildering.

“I’ve been looking for you. I need some help,” Daisy said.

I sighed. “What for?”

“I’m expanding some fibrous cells for a bone differentiation study and I need basic transforming growth factor. I think…alpha? Beta?”

I gave her an incredulous look. “Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong.”

She looked taken aback and I continued. “First of all, you were referring to fibroblasts, not ‘fibrous cells,’ whatever those are. Second, fibroblasts can’t differentiate into bone, so either you’re expanding the wrong cell type, or you’re actually expanding MSCs. Third, you’re getting, like, 3 growth factors confused. Basic fibroblast growth factor isn’t the same as transforming growth factor beta, which isn’t the same as transforming growth factor alpha – by the way, we don’t have nor use TGF-alpha. Finally, you don’t _need_ bFGF to expand MSCs.”

“I…see.”

I sighed again. “Can you just show me the flask you’re expanding?”

“Okay,” she said, and began walking toward the lab. I followed and was surprised to see Dr. Chambers looking at us down the hall. I smiled and waved. She returned the greeting and said she’d wait until I was done.

Daisy and I went into the lab and I looked at the flask. Luckily, someone else had seeded the cells, meaning I could trust the label on the flask, which said MSC rather than fibroblast (which told me Daisy was, indeed, culturing the correct cell type). I pointed out the components she would need to continue the culture, grabbed my things, and exited the lab to meet back up with Dr. Chambers.

“Hey,” I said.

“I finished early, so I thought I’d come down here. Is she okay?”

I cocked my head to one side. “Who, Daisy? She’s doing a trivial medium exchange. I doubt she’ll have any issues, especially when I pretty much made the medium for her just now.”

“Hmm. That’s Daisy, huh?” Dr. Chambers looked toward the door to Cidney’s lab for a minute.

I’d forgotten that, while I’d mentioned Daisy to Dr. Chambers when talking about my high school friends and Terragrigia, she’d never actually met her.

“Walk with me,” she said. I followed her down the hall toward the lobby.

“You really don’t like her, do you?”

“…I mean…I told you what happened. She got one of my friends killed.”

Dr. Chambers pushed open the door to the lobby and we headed toward the staircase. As we ascended, she spoke. “I don’t quite know if that’s fair. But…even if we say it is, she certainly doesn’t seem to be the airheaded girl you described to me a few years back. Aren’t you being harsh on her?”

Arriving at the third floor, Dr. Chambers turned toward the wing that led to Narshe Hall. “What…do you mean?” I asked.

“I remember you telling me how Daisy seemed content with being a trophy for that guy…Tom, was it? I’m saying that from what you’ve told me _since_ then, she seems to have changed. Transferring here, joining the Society of the Phoenix, pursuing your major, joining your lab…”

I was quiet as we crossed into Narshe Hall. The door led to a suite of offices and Dr. Chambers led me through them toward the biochemistry labs. She continued, “You’ve always been like this. Unflinchingly loyal to your friends and frighteningly merciless to those who get on your bad side.”

I laughed a little. “Really?”

“Oh, if I had a dollar each time you told me how much you hate that Tom guy, I would have a building on campus named after me by now,” she responded with her own laugh.

“Hmm…and how many chambers would your hall have?” I asked cheekily. She gave me a tired look before breaking out into a smile and rolling her eyes.

“You’re hopeless. Look…people change. Remember when I was in grad school and I yelled at you? Not one of my proudest moments and certainly not something I would’ve done when I was younger. And then I grew past that…all that bitterness. People change. I just think you’re judging Daisy for who she was in high school, not who she is now – you’re ignoring everything she’s done since then.”

We reached the end of the office suite and walked into the L-shaped hall that connected one of the clusters of labs. Dr. Chambers’s lab was at the junction of the L and as she pulled out a key to open the door, I looked behind me to the glass wall that overlooked the first floor, giving me a nice view of the large DNA sculpture that adorned the building’s center.

“You’re always seeing the best in people,” I said. “I…really admire that.”

She smiled as we entered her lab. “Thanks. You know, some would call that being naïve. But…just think about it, okay? About Daisy.”

I smiled back at her. “Yes, Dr. Chambers.”

“Good boy. Anyway, you want to get something to eat? I have to stay overnight, so I wanted to grab food now.”

“Sure!” I responded. “Oh, and here’s that book I borrowed.”

**Part 6 (Rebecca): Commencement, March 2009**

I stepped out of the clean room and de-gowned before grabbing my things, throwing on my winter coat, and walking quickly down the white hall out of the nanotechnology core labs. I swept past the heavy double metal doors, emerging into the outer ring of Cornelia Hall, and made a beeline for the exit into Crystal Quad. I couldn’t contain my excitement – Jill wasn’t dead, as I’d thought for almost 3 years. She was alive. And she was arriving here, today, finally rescued from Africa and Wesker’s clutches.

I didn’t have many details. All I knew was that Chris had embarked on a BSAA mission to Africa, found Jill alive being mind-controlled by Wesker, and killed Wesker (hopefully for real this time?). After they returned to the United States, the BSAA ran a few preliminary tests on Jill to assess her health before deciding to send her to me for further testing.

It sickened me to think that Jill had been Wesker’s captive for 3 years. Who knows what he’d made her do. But she was alive.

I crossed Crystal Quad, passing the central flagpole, and went through Alexandria Hall. I kept walking until I reached Balamb Hall, after which I turned right and exited campus to the BSAA’s small facility. I’d originally intended to do all my work here, but the university’s labs had way better equipment, not to mention the various facilities in Crystal Quad were way easier to access if I worked out of Narshe Hall. That said, the university had understandable qualms about having BSAA personnel (possibly armed) coming and going on campus – I had to petition for them to allow me on campus freely, so I arranged for Jill to arrive at the BSAA facility rather than an on-campus one.

As I approached, I saw a helicopter on the far side of the building. They’d arrived already. Entering and hurrying down the hall to my office, I saw Jill inside, clad in a simple gown, with Chris next to her. Jill looked sickly pale and her hair was an unnatural shade of blonde, but I barely noticed and ran up to hug Jill, tears almost forming in my eyes.

Presently, we let each other go. “No hug for Chris, huh?” Jill said, mirth in her voice. She turned to him. “I think she can’t even reach all the way around you, anyway.”

“You’re still your old self,” I said softly. “After all you went through…”

Jill smiled weakly. “I’m eager to put that behind me. Hopefully I can…” she trailed off. “But for now, I’m just glad to be back here…with you guys.”

“Yeah, it’s a big reunion. If Barry were here, we’d have everybody,” Chris spoke.

“How is he? Have you been in contact?” I asked, turning on the computer and some equipment.

“He’s in Canada, with his family. Last I heard, they were doing well. He’s retired, basically. I don’t blame him for wanting to put all this behind him.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said. I turned to Jill. “I’m going to take a blood sample for some basic analysis and then I need to review the files the BSAA –” I turned to Chris “– you sent me. That will allow me to figure out what to do next.”

Jill stretched her arms above her head. “You still owe me for the first blood sample I gave you…” she said. I gave her a tired expression and she smiled innocently at me.

“Alright,” I said. “Stay here – I’ll go get some alcohol wipes and syringes.”

I finished setting up the computer to register a new data file, rose, and went next door into the supply room. I scanned the shelves, picking out gloves and equipment for drawing blood, when I heard Chris crash into something and let out a loud yelp.

“…What’s going on in there?” I shouted.

There was a pause. “We’re fine!” Chris’s voice came up. “We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How…are _you_ , Rebecca?”

Really? I grabbed what I needed and returned to the lab where Chris was busy trying to clean up a spilled cup of coffee on the ground while Jill looked at him with an amused expression on her face. I sighed. “That didn’t spill on the computer, did it?”

“Nope.”

I rolled my eyes. “The _one_ time I let food and drink in the lab area and this happens.”

Jill smiled. “It really is nice…being with you guys again.”

I began setting up. “So…umm…what happened? In Africa?”

Chris narrated. “In 2004, Leon – that’s Claire’s friend from Raccoon City – went on a mission to Europe. Don’t know for what, since he’s a secret agent, but he wrote a report detailing a parasite he encountered there that allowed certain people to mind-control others. It’s possible Wesker managed to get a sample of whatever this parasite was and use it to make a mind-control device.”

I shuddered. “Now we have to worry about mind-control parasites?”

“…Well, it’s also possible Wesker made his mind-control device from something completely unrelated to what Leon described,” Chris said. “It just seems…strange, if that were the case. Especially when you consider that Wesker’s been up to all sorts of experimentation and bioweapons development using the bits and pieces of previous biohazard agents these past few years.”

I opened an alcohol wipe and started on Jill’s arm. “He’s dead, right? For real this time?”

“We threw him into an active volcano and then shot two rockets into his face,” Chris said. “The BSAA has since cordoned off that volcano and is monitoring it 24/7 to make sure nothing leaves. If he did somehow survive that and tries to leave, we’ll know.”

“It does seem less likely he survived lava and 2 rockets compared to impalement and a fall off a cliff,” Jill said. “Also, Uroboros is weak to fire, right?”

I stabbed Jill with a needle. “Uroboros? The mythical snake? What does that have to do with anything?”

“The new virus Wesker made, named Uroboros. It’s derived from Progenitor. He intended to do what Spencer wanted – kill everyone genetically incompatible with it – before we stopped him,” Chris answered.

I frowned. “…What makes Uroboros different from Progenitor?”

“We were hoping you’d be able to tell us that.”

I finished drawing Jill’s blood and nodded. “I’ll take a look. For now, you two should get some rest.”

Jill slid off the table and smiled at me. “Good luck!” I gave her a thumbs-up in return.

Over the next few days and weeks, I studied the files Chris had recovered from his mission, mostly from assets seized from TRICELL (yet another pharmaceutical company in the bioterrorism business; go figure). It seemed that Wesker had defined several shortcomings of Progenitor for his and Spencer’s purposes. First, Progenitor, like its descendants, was not an airborne virus. Disseminating it to the entire world’s population was thus incredibly difficult, so Wesker did something that terrified me: he made Progenitor airborne when he turned it into Uroboros. He planned on dispersing it _via_ missile launch in the atmosphere. The fact that the pathogens we’d faced thus far could only be transmitted _via_ injection or ingestion had been one of the few reliefs we had…and now that was gone.

Also, it seemed that Wesker thought Progenitor was too lethal, even though I thought that was the entire point of why he and Spencer wanted to use it. At any rate, his modification into Uroboros made the virus slower to mutate the host, giving the host more time for the virus to “adapt.” Failure to adapt didn’t result in death, but instead resulted in mutation into a writhing mass of tentacles. He used the antibodies in Jill’s blood to accomplish this, which makes me sick even just thinking about it for all sorts of reasons.

On the topic of Jill, the mind-control chemical Wesker used on her was termed P30 and was derived from research into those Las Plagas parasites Leon’s report described. Apparently, Las Plagas came in 2 strains: a dominant strain and a regular strain. Hosts of the dominant strain can mind-control hosts of the regular strain. Wesker engineered P30 to have the same effect; he didn’t simply use the Plagas because he didn’t want to inject himself with a dominant-strain Plaga.

On the topic of the Plagas, TRICELL spent a lot of resources on researching the parasites themselves. They had ample notes on how to disrupt and kill the parasite once inside a host, ranging from newly developed drugs to painful-sounding radiotherapy; mostly, they were trying to find ways of countering these measures. I could study the notes on the drugs and disseminate the information to the BSAA so they could mass-produce it in the event that bioterrorists tried to use the Plagas again, like TRICELL did in Africa.

Of course, my main focus was still on Progenitor and its derivatives. I searched the files for some biological data on how Progenitor or Uroboros actually infected cells and the mechanism of action post-infection, but found none. It seemed that Wesker himself didn’t know – most of his experiments were trial-and-error. I _did_ find his notes on how Jill’s antibodies interacted with Progenitor on a molecular level, which meant I could likely use the protein structures to develop some sort of prototype antiviral drug. It wasn’t much different from what I’d been doing already, except now I had information on Progenitor’s structure whereas before, I only had information on Jill’s antibodies.

Wesker was dead. We finally had some concrete data on the virus that started this entire nightmare. I felt like things were finally looking up.

**Finale: To Poke the Bear, Part I (MC), February 2010**

I watched Dr. Chambers move around the lab, her actions quick and confident, exuding an aura of calm and expertise. “So how much money did you guys make?” she asked.

“I have no idea. The university owns all the intellectual property. Someone from technology transfer or something hashed out those details with Tlemsanix.”

“I see. Even thus, congratulations on getting your devices into the market.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling brightly.

“You recovered from your trip there yet? Tlemsanix headquarters are in…what, Louisiana? That’s a ways away.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I slept through most of yesterday. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Dr. Chambers responded. “I’ll probably be doing that tomorrow. I have another long night here.” She gave me a sigh and a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You…umm…want me to keep you company through the night?”

Dr. Chambers laughed. “You have an exam on Monday. Go study.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up to leave. “Have fun, Dr. Chambers.” She responded with her usual thumbs-up and I left the lab and descended to the first floor of Narshe Hall. The sense of satisfaction from finalizing our deal to sell the intellectual property to Tlemsanix Technologies was still fresh on my mind and I found myself full of energy, even as the brutal February wind greeted me with a blast to the face as I left the building. Our design team in the Society of the Phoenix would be holding a celebration sometime soon. Personally, I felt I had done something significant for Terragrigia and for the war on bioterror.

Dr. Chambers was right, though – finalizing the deal, culminating in a trip to Tlemsanix headquarters, meant I had devoted little time to my coursework. I’d need to kick myself into high gear in time for my exam…but then again, what else was new.

I crossed Crystal Quad and walked across Jurassic Road to turn right and enter Ursa Quad. The quad was covered in fresh snow and I found myself missing the relatively warm weather in the south during my trip. Crossing Ursa Quad, I entered town and walked a bit further to my apartment. I entered, put my things down, and decided to chill for a bit on the Internet before studying.

My friends were commenting on social media about my trip to Tlemsanix. I hadn’t mentioned what we were there for – I wasn’t entirely sure I was allowed to, what with all the business and intellectual property things going on that I never bothered to understand, but I had written about touring their facilities and how they were working to restore Terragrigia. Nick from high school wrote, “Glad you’re fighting the good fight, unlike some other people I can name who instead decided to go screw people over selling health insurance.”

He was talking about Tom. Reading his comment reminded me of Daisy and Dr. Chambers’s words regarding how much I was judging her. Maybe she was right. Tom had been an ass in high school and it seemed he was still an ass now. Daisy had been an airhead in high school but…even I had to admit she was a totally different and admirable person now.

I hadn’t really interacted with her much, preferring to keep my distance. Maybe I should make my peace with her before graduation, I thought, turning off the Internet browser and opening my notes.

The next thing I knew, I was groggily waking up to the sound of my phone’s alarm. I realized I had fallen asleep studying with my head on top of my arm, which was now also waking up with a million pins and needles. I picked up my phone, realizing the alarm wasn’t a regular one – it was the alarm reserved for emergencies. Flipping it open, I glanced through the text.

“ACTIVE BIOTERROR THREAT AVOID CAMPUS 12:13 AM”

Huh?

I fumbled around and dialed campus police. “I just received an alert for a bioterror threat. What’s going on?” I asked the operator.

“Bioweapons have been spotted on campus. Police have been dispatched to all residential areas. We recommend staying at home until further notice.”

“On campus?! Wait – I have a friend on campus. She’s –”

“The BSAA has been notified and they’ve given us an ETA of 30 to 60 minutes. I’m sorry, but our priority is to deploy personnel to all residential areas. Please stay indoors until further notice.”

“I…”

“I’m sorry; if there’s no emergency, I need to hang up to ensure I’m able to respond to other callers.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” I said, and the operator hung up.

I was no longer groggy. Anxiety had dispelled my drowsiness as completely as a hurricane would disperse a pile of ash. Dr. Chambers was on campus. She might even be asleep in lab. I began texting her…but then realized that if there were monsters around her, it’d be much better if her phone didn’t make any extra sound. Then again, her phone would have made the same screeching alarm mine did when the alert came through…

She can take care of herself, I thought. She was in STARS. She fought off Umbrella. She’ll be fine. But this time she wasn’t armed. She was in a lab doing experiments. She was…

My anxiety blossomed and suddenly I had an intense flashback to Terragrigia – how quickly the Hunters had invaded and wrecked the tourist sector, how vicious they were killing the panicking people, how one had so easily ended my friend’s…

I tried once again to calm down. I failed. In that moment, I stood up, strode across my room, and put on my finger-tab and arm-guard. I pulled my stringer out of my quiver, strung my bow, and packed it back into the quiver. I checked my arrows – I had a dozen – and swept to the door. I quickly threw my winter coat on and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

I wasn’t even fully processing what I was doing. The notion of Dr. Chambers needing my help was pretty ridiculous – her combat ability was, well, _existent_ , unlike mine. I also wasn’t entire sure what I was supposed to do with a bow and arrows, but it wasn’t like I had conventional weapons lying around. Despite all this, all I could think of, all I knew, was that I needed to get to Dr. Chambers. I needed to be there to help her in any way I could. I couldn’t let anything, none of the horrific fates I witnessed before, happen to her. Even if I could be a human shield, that was _something_.

Before I could walk down the hall to the stairs, my next-door neighbor, Alyse, popped out of her apartment. “Hey, did you hear…what are you doing?”

“My friend’s on campus,” I said.

“What, are you going to go save him? With that?”

“ _Her_. And I have to do _something_. Keep trying to get through to police, will you? We’ll be in Crystal Quad. The research zone.”

“Are you insane?!”

I paid her no mind and walked down the hall away from her. “If I die, you can have my stuff,” I shouted back, before throwing open the door to the stairs out of the building.

The cold greeted me again – this time, even more brutal than before. It was a bit past midnight, after all. I tightened my grip on my bow and headed toward Ursa Quad before seeing the red-and-blue flashing lights of the police cruisers between me and campus. They’d likely stop me, even though they weren’t going to do anything for anyone on campus, I thought, and made a sharp right to head east. I ran down the road toward the small path that led to the sports zone. I saw nobody on my way and I soon emerged onto campus, Sportsball Stadium looming to my left, the research zone across Jurassic Road in front of me.

I slowed my pace as I jogged across Jurassic Road to come up against Zanarkand Hall. I could hear something in Crystal Quad. I turned left, toward Barney Road, intending to get closer to the western side of the research zone where Narshe Hall was.

An explosion rent the air. I looked around – it seemed to have come from the northeastern direction – around Balamb Hall. I calmed myself a little – at least it wasn’t Narshe Hall – and continued on. Passing Zanarkand Hall, I turned right and walked between it and Baron Hall to enter Crystal Quad.

There they were. An army of Hunters. They seemed to be clustered around Narshe Hall, to my dismay. Their shapes, their features, and their sounds – everything I could see and hear screamed at me to run away.

I snuck closer, keeping close to the buildings, until I moved up alongside Midgar Hall. I slowly pulled out my ID card and pushed it against the reader. The door clicked unlocked and I pulled it open just slightly. I was actually surprised none of the Hunters had seen or somehow sensed me yet. They were right there. Terrifying. Deadly. My nightmares in the flesh.

Between me and Dr. Chambers.

I nocked one arrow to my bow and drew it back. I relaxed my grip on my bow.

“HELLO THERE!” I shouted, my voice echoing through the empty quad. The Hunters reacted immediately, turning toward me, but I didn’t wait for them. I loosed my first arrow into the nearest one, pulled open the door to Midgar Hall, and ran inside. I burst into the nearest stairwell and began climbing, even as I heard shattering glass and splintering wood behind me.

Reaching the second floor, I opened the door and sprinted into a corridor. A quick glance out a window showed most of the Hunters had turned their attention to Midgar Hall. A half-formed thought crossed my mind, something about me being grateful that the Hunters were now out for my blood, but I had little time to dwell on the matter. I ran down the corridor, using the lighted EXIT signs to guide me to another stairwell closer to Narshe Hall. More shattered glass behind me signaled the arrival of more Hunters and I wasted no time bursting into that stairwell and making my descent.

I slowly opened the door back outside at the foot of the stairs and inched out, keeping close to the wall. I could hear growls all around me. Taking a deep breath, I nocked another arrow, took a few steps out, and aimed at the flagpole in the center of the quad.

My second arrow flew into the pole and bounced off, sending a loud clang across Crystal Quad. I stepped back against Midgar Hall and waited for the growls to move toward the flagpole. I gave it about three seconds before I took off running into Narshe Hall. The Hunters had very nicely torn a hole into the entrance, so I didn’t need to worry about swiping my ID, and I hopped over some wreckage to emerge into the lobby with the large sculpture stretching up toward the ceiling. I made a beeline toward the elevators, pounded the up button, and waited a few tense seconds.

The elevator arrived with a ding that sounded about nine thousand and one times louder than I thought it was supposed to. I ran in and frantically pushed the door close button, even though I knew that button did nothing in most elevators. As the doors finally began to close, I saw a Hunter re-enter the building and leap at me. Before I could react, the door had closed, blocking its attack, and the elevator began its ascent. Was it just me, or did that Hunter move much more slowly than I remembered from Terragrigia?

I held my breath as the elevator went up, but nothing happened and the elevator reached the third floor. I ran out the door into the L-shaped hallway. A quick look around showed little out of the ordinary. I kept low – there was that large window overlooking the first floor behind me – and crept toward Dr. Chambers’s lab. The door was closed, which I guessed was a good thing. If Hunters had broken in, there wouldn’t be a door left to close.

Slowly, I turned the handle and looked in. The lights were off, but the single emergency light provided enough light to see inside. I looked around quickly when Dr. Chambers popped her head up behind a bench, aiming a can of compressed air directly at me.

I sighed with the most relief I think I’ve ever felt. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whispered, and closed the door behind me. I ran into the lab and behind the bench next to her. She stared at me with a mixture of bewilderment and shock.

Before she could ask, I spoke. “There are Hunters. They’re mostly hitting this building for some reason. There’re a few on the first floor right now.”

I looked at Dr. Chambers. Her expression hadn’t changed. “We should leave through Tycoon,” I finished.

“…What…are you doing here? Why do you…” she gestured to my bow and arrows.

“I heard about the attack,” I said. “I…felt I had to come help you.”

Dr. Chambers’s expression turned to one of incredulity. “Are you out of your mind?!”

“I had to do _something_ ,” I said, sheepishly. “Look, you can yell at me later.”

“Oh, I _will_ ,” she said. “What did you say about the –”

Some more crashes and broken glass outside interrupted her. The Hunters were getting closer and there weren’t any exits out of the lab besides the way I’d come in. We were at the junction of an L, meaning the two paths into the area both led to here.

I looked around and stopped when I saw the two cell culture incubators in the corner. I pointed and asked, “Is anyone doing cell culture in that?”

“I am,” Dr. Chambers responded.

“In both?”

“The top one. Where are you going with this?”

“Let’s unhook the CO2 tank from the bottom one.”

“Oh,” she said, after a short pause. “I get it. Alright, hold on.”

I kept my eye on the door as she worked. “That wasn’t you in the quad earlier, was it? I heard someone yell hello,” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “You know…just practicing my social skills. Introducing myself, that kind of thing.”

“You’re _quipping_ at a time like this.”

“I feel like I quip at any and all times,” I replied. It actually did occur to me that I wasn’t being entirely appropriate – I should be shaking in terror, not making flippant comments – but I guess it was a defense mechanism or something. Or maybe I had actually gone off the deep end. I didn’t dwell on the matter.

“Got it,” Dr. Chambers said. She began rolling the tank out from the corner and I looked around the lab again for something I could use. I needed to aim the bottom of the tank at the door and break the regulator on top of it, thereby releasing all its pressure at once – this would propel the tank through the door, making a giant mess outside and hopefully distracting any Hunters so we could get away.

Dr. Chambers rolled the tank directly in front of the door and I started setting something up when more crashes outside signaled the Hunters’ arrival. Something slammed against the door, breaking it into splinters. Another swipe and a Hunter entered, staring at us, growling its characteristic low growl.

Dr. Chambers dropped the cylinder and backed away. She pulled out that can of compressed air again. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the closest heavy object to me – a tabletop microcentrifuge – and hurled it at the head of the gas cylinder. The centrifuge slammed against the regulator, breaking it with a loud clang, and the cylinder shot out of the room, right into the Hunter and into the hall beyond. Loud shattering glass and an even louder crash followed.

I turned to Dr. Chambers, who put away her can of compressed air and grabbed 2 stopped flasks with some sort of liquid inside them sitting on the bench. We ran outside, to the left, and headed into the office area. As I left, I saw that the gas cylinder had completely shattered the window overlooking the first floor and crashed into the large sculpture beyond, damaging it heavily. At least it made a lot of noise, I thought to myself.

We ran into the offices when a Hunter leapt out at us. Dr. Chambers stumbled to a stop and I nocked an arrow to my bow. Before I could raise my bow, Dr. Chambers threw one of her flasks into the Hunter’s face. The flask shattered, releasing the liquid inside, and the Hunter recoiled in pain.

“It’s weak to acid! Shoot it!”

I obeyed, loosing my third arrow into the Hunter, right where Dr. Chambers’s flask had hit it. The Hunter recoiled again and we ran onward. We reached the door leading to Tycoon Hall – and it was locked.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” Dr. Chambers said. “My keys are in the lab.”

The Hunter from before lumbered into view. Dr. Chambers ran into a nearby desk and gestured at me to do something about it while rifling through it for something. I nocked my fourth arrow to my bow and shot the Hunter again; this time, it fell to the ground and twitched a little before it stopped.

“Found one,” Dr. Chambers said, frantic triumph in her voice. She ran to the door with a paper clip and began picking the lock. I had no idea she knew how to do that, but I guess it didn’t surprise me either. I nocked another arrow to my bow, tensely scanning the hall behind us for more Hunters, but Dr. Chambers succeeded in getting the door open soon enough and we ran through to enter the third floor of Tycoon Hall.

Continuing on, we ran to the railing to the central stairway. I looked down and stopped. The first floor had a few Hunters crawling around. Even as my mind flew, trying to figure out what to do, I noticed once again they weren’t moving with the demonic speed I remembered.

“They’re slowed for some reason,” I murmured.

“They’re cold,” Dr. Chambers responded. “Hunters are reptilian. Cold-blooded. And it’s freezing outside.”

“I see…”

“If we go down the stairs, they’re still close enough to attack, though.”

“I’ll shoot an arrow into the door. Hopefully the breaking glass will get their attention. We’ll run into the quad.”

“I was thinking we should go to the BSAA facility beyond Balamb Hall,” Dr. Chambers said.

“That’s a…wait. I heard an explosion from there when I was coming up.”

Dr. Chambers was quiet. “I’m starting to think these things are here specifically for me.”

“That’s silly,” I answered. “This can’t be your fault. Anyway, we ready?”

We inched out into the stairs and I took aim. Inhaling, I launched my fifth arrow into the glass door leading to Power Road. The breaking glass got the Hunters’ attention immediately and we made a break for it down the stairs. As we reached the first floor, though, a few of the Hunters were still close enough to notice our approach.

“Run to Cidney’s lab!” I yelled. Dr. Chambers turned and ran toward the hall and I followed, nocking another arrow as I did so. We reached the door to the hall and I slammed my wallet against the reader, hoping it would detect my ID.

The door unlocked and we ran past it. I slammed the door shut and the angry Hunter on the other side began clawing at it. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.

“We need to slow them down more,” I said, running down the hall toward the lab. We ran inside and I headed directly for the cell cryo-storage room. “Help me roll the liquid nitrogen tank out,” I said.

Together, we managed to push the tank into the entranceway just in time to hear the door break into a cloud of splinters. I propped up the nozzle to the tank on a chair and opened the valve fully, spraying liquid nitrogen into the hallway.

I pointed behind me. “We’ll need to break that window to get out of here,” I said.

“On it,” Dr. Chambers replied, running further into the lab. I backed away from the liquid nitrogen tank, my bow at the ready, as a Hunter leapt into view. It instantly recoiled at the spraying liquid nitrogen and backed away, only to be replaced by a second Hunter. I took aim and sent my sixth arrow into the second Hunter, which stumbled into the first one, both taking the full brunt of the liquid nitrogen.

A loud crash behind me and a blast of cold air signaled that Dr. Chambers had succeeded in breaking the window. I ran toward her and we crawled outside, slowly, hoping we didn’t cut ourselves, though she’d pretty much shattered the entire window, giving us plenty of clearance. Once outside, we could see the bright flames beyond Balamb Hall, confirming my suspicions that the BSAA facility had been destroyed.

“Let’s run to Cornelia Hall,” Dr. Chambers said, her teeth chattering. I realized she hadn’t brought her coat with her (unsurprising, considering the circumstances).

“Hold on. Keep low,” I said, running toward Power Road. I pulled out another arrow and took aim. “I hope nobody’s in that car,” I mumbled, looking across the road, and let my seventh arrow fly. It shot directly through a car’s left window and the car’s alarm screeched through the air.

I turned back toward Dr. Chambers. “Give the Hunters a bit to run toward it,” I said. “In the meantime…”

I dropped my bow, took off my winter coat, and draped it around her. Before she could protest, I picked up my bow, peeked back toward the car, and signaled that we needed to leave. We ran down the stairs into Crystal Quad and a quick glance behind me showed that the entrance to Tycoon Hall was completely destroyed. The Hunters in the building had broken through to Power Road to investigate the car alarm, while any in the quad had broken through the doors on the quad side to get through the building to join their comrades.

We continued running southwest, toward Cornelia Hall. I didn’t know why Dr. Chambers wanted to go there, but it wasn’t like I had any better ideas, so I followed as best I could. The cold bit into me, made worse due to me sweating from exertion and adrenaline. I gritted my teeth and pushed my pain aside.

Reaching Cornelia Hall, Dr. Chambers pulled out her ID and scanned it into the door. We ran inside and she closed the door behind her before heading to the nearest fire alarm and pulling it. Instantly, a second set of metal doors swung closed in front of the doors we just entered through. Loud thuds around the building signaled other doors doing the same.

“Fire alarm activated. Personnel evacuate Cornelia Hall immediately. Initiating building lockdown.”

“This building has a voiced system?” I asked.

“Yes? Oh, right, undergrads aren’t allowed in here.”

“Hey…I’m a Master’s student now.”

Dr. Chambers rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we’ll be safe in here. Lockdown means the doors will only open from inside and this building is very well reinforced. I don’t think a Hunter could breach those doors.”

“Fire alarm activated. Personnel evacuate Cornelia Hall immediately. Building lockdown complete.”

“…Which is good, because that voice is going to start broadcasting outside the building now.”

I gave Dr. Chambers an alarmed look. “It’s so that people outside the building know to avoid Cornelia Hall,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. Just…let’s stay away from the –”

A loud slamming sound from the metal doors reverberated through the hall. Dr. Chambers looked toward the door, her expression turning to one of dread. Whatever was on the other side slammed into it again.

“…That doesn’t sound like a Hunter,” I said.

“It’s not.”

Before I could ask for more details, Dr. Chambers pushed past me and ran down the hall, beckoning for me to follow. I obeyed.

“See those potted plants around? Start piling them up over there.”

We split up to collect the plants. I didn’t question her, though I wondered how piling a bunch of plants was going to help us against whatever was currently busting through a set of metal doors. Once we’d finished gathering what we could, Dr. Chambers crouched down and placed the second of the two flasks she had carried out of the lab in the midst of the plants.

“More acid?”

“Nope. You ever heard of a Molotov cocktail?”

“You made a Molotov cocktail?!”

“Yeah. It’s easy.” Dr. Chambers opened the flask and poured a little of its contents into a piece of gauze she pulled out of her pocket before recapping the flask. “Come on,” she said, getting up.

I followed her further down the hall toward another exit. When we reached it, she held out her hand. “Give me one of your arrows.”

I did so and she wrapped the wet gauze around the tip, then returned it to me. “When they show up, I’m going to light the gauze and you’ll shoot the arrow into the flask, setting all of that on fire. We’ll need to run outside as soon as we can, because once that fire starts, the entire building is going to get flooded by the sprinkler system.”

“How’s making them wet going to stop them?”

“Because once they run outside after us, convection will cool them down rapidly. Especially if they’re running in pursuit.”

“Oh. Right.”

“It’ll probably slow any Hunters down significantly. Maybe even stop them. As for the Tyrant…we’ll just need to run as fast as we can.”

I stared at her. “…The Tyrant.”

“If I’m right, that’s what’s breaking down the doors right now. Unlike Hunters, I don’t think Tyrants are cold-blooded. Not in the biological sense, anyway.”

“…So…that giant clawed thing you mentioned? Back in the day? That’s what’s out there?”

“The thing I mentioned was a prototype Tyrant. I’m guessing the one out there is a more modern one.”

“…Anything I should know?”

Dr. Chambers sighed. “Besides run? No.”

I was quiet. We both were, just staring down the hall, past the piled plants, waiting. We didn’t have long to wait before a deafening crash echoed down the hall and a large figure emerged into view.

“Now!”

I drew the arrow back and Dr. Chambers lit a match to set the gauze alight. “Shoot!”

I wasted no time in letting the arrow – my eighth – go. That burning gauze was awfully close to my hand. The arrow broke the flask neatly and a plume of flame billowed up to lick and spread through the pile.

Dr. Chambers grabbed my arm and pulled me to the doors, which she flung open and we ran back out into the cold night. As we did so, I heard the robotic voice announce, “Warning. Fire detected. Initiating laboratory lockdown. Activating fire suppression system.”

We ran. We ran as quickly as we could, even as the sudden return to the freezing outdoors cut right through my clothes. We ran diagonally across both Barney and Jurassic Roads into Ursa Quad. We ran directly across the quad, toward town. Suddenly, Dr. Chambers stopped and pushed both of us to one side. I barely managed to keep my footing and stumbled back as that figure from before slammed into the ground with a large fist, narrowly missing us.

“So much for running,” Dr. Chambers grumbled. We backed away from the Tyrant, which straightened to its full height and turned toward us.

It looked like a large human, dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora. Its face had a completely empty expression, like some sort of terrifying void, but I could tell it was focused on Dr. Chambers.

I nocked an arrow into my bow. “You run for it. I’m going to distract him,” I said softly. “I have four arrows left.”

Dr. Chambers walked up beside me and gave me a flat, “No.”

The Tyrant strode toward us and Dr. Chambers pulled out her can of compressed air. She aimed and pulled the trigger – and rather than a puff of air, a stream of flame blasted forth into the approaching Tyrant’s face. It staggered back, raising its arms to its face, as its fedora caught on fire and flew off.

The Tyrant took a step back and Dr. Chambers dropped her arm. She grabbed me and took off running again toward the south, glancing back quickly to track the Tyrant. We didn’t make it very far before Dr. Chambers dove to the right. I tried to follow her, but was too slow and caught a glancing blow from the Tyrant, sending me flying to the left.

I landed in a puff of snow. I struggled to get up but failed, feeling the effect of both the impact and the cold. The Tyrant had turned away from me and was walking toward Dr. Chambers. I raised my bow and shot my ninth arrow into the back of the Tyrant’s head.

“Hey! Mr. Fashion Disaster! Over here!” I screamed, even as a sudden wind cut into my skin again. The Tyrant turned back toward me. I thought I saw irritation in his expression, but I was probably just seeing things, as I don’t think Tyrants ever had expressions. He took a step toward me. Good.

I pulled out another arrow and nocked it. I was shaking now, my breathing short and ragged. But it didn’t matter to me. As long as the Tyrant was focused on me, it didn’t matter.

I aimed as best I could and let my tenth arrow fly. The Tyrant nonchalantly slapped it to the side before it could land.

“…Well then,” I muttered. I weakly reached back for another arrow when I heard a voice off to the distance, above me. I couldn’t quite make out what it said, and the next thing I knew, something landed near the Tyrant’s feet just a few meters from me. It blinked with some sort of LED, then exploded in an impossibly bright flash of light and an equally impossibly loud bang.

I turned away, squeezing my eyes shut, but even with my eyes closed I saw nothing but light. I could barely hear anything, either. That, on top of exertion, was very quickly getting to me. I struggled to stay conscious, tightening my grip on my bow, but the last thing I remembered before passing out was a pair of hands grabbing me from behind and pulling me…somewhere.

The next thing I knew, I was slowly opening my eyes in an unfamiliar room. The first thing I did was shut them again, the memory of whatever bright thing that knocked me out flooding back into my mind. The next thing I did was sit up frantically, my eyes wide open, as I remembered why I’d been out in the first place.

“Hey, hey, relax.”

I turned to see Alyse sitting casually in the corner of the room. She got up and walked toward me.

“Dr. Chambers. Is she –”

“She’s fine. In fact, she gave me specific instructions to go get her as soon as you woke up.”

I lay back down, relaxing. But then I sat back up again, albeit less frantically. “My bow. Is it…”

Alyse pointed to the other corner, where my bow and quiver (with my 2 remaining arrows) were leaning against the wall.

“You’ve got to unstring it,” I said. “You shouldn’t leave a bow strung for too long…how long was I out, anyway?”

“Not long,” Alyse replied. “It’s Sunday afternoon.”

So the attack occurred last night. “I don’t know how to unstring a bow,” Alyse said.

I pointed to my quiver and began giving instructions when Dr. Chambers walked into the room. One look at her face and I gulped in fear. She looked…more furious than I’d ever seen her, even compared to that day she yelled at me in high school.

“You,” Dr. Chambers said, pointing to Alyse. “Out.”

Alyse wasted little time in obeying, leaving me alone in the room with a very angry Rebecca Chambers. She turned to me, her arms folded, with an expression that I was certain could have made that Tyrant from last night flee for its life.

“What. _The Hell_. Were you thinking?!”

Any number of reasons could have explained how I responded, which was in a blabbering mess. Maybe I hadn’t thought this far, given I had left my apartment expecting to serve as a distraction at best and, given the circumstances, I didn’t have a high chance of survival. Maybe I had no idea Dr. Chambers would be _this_ angry. Maybe I was just tongue-tied since I’d just awakened from…whatever combination of things had knocked me out. Maybe I was remembering the last time she was angry with me, and the way she kicked me out of her life. But I spoke quickly, and perhaps nonsensically, and…I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I stumbled over my words explaining how much she’d meant to me ever since I met her in 1998 and how I remembered the Hunters from Terragrigia and how I was terrified of anything even remotely like that happening to her. I’m pretty sure I said a bunch of other things, and I probably repeated myself a bunch of times. But gradually, I trailed off, probably having run out of things to say or energy to say them, and looked up at Dr. Chambers. Her expression had, very surprisingly, softened significantly.

“So that’s it, huh. You _like_ me.”

Had I said that out loud? A new wave of terror gripped my chest. Actually, this wasn’t terror – it was _panic_. I’m sure I stopped breathing and if I’d been ignorant of basic biology, I would’ve sworn my heart stopped beating as well. My eyes widened and my face either flushed or became pale. Or both…though that didn’t make any sense. She smiled slightly and walked toward me.

“I think I always knew. Way back when…I thought it was just a childhood crush, but, well, you’re grown up now.” She sighed and sat down next to me, turning to look at me.

The panic intensified and it took me a second to notice her laughing, full of amusement and mirth. “You idiotically charged into a college campus under attack by bioweapons with nothing but a bow and arrows, making _one-liners_ the whole time, but _this_ terrifies you?”

I didn’t answer, panic still strangling my entire body, and Dr. Chambers laughed again. “It’s okay, you know. It’s okay. It’s…”

She leaned even closer, and before I knew it, we’d locked lips, sharing a long, quiet, passionate kiss. And as she leaned back, away from me afterward, I stared, stunned, into her lovely green eyes. I opened my mouth and only one word came out, an almost plaintive squeak:

“…Becky…”

A slow, mischievous smile began spreading across her face. “That’s _Doctor Chambers_ to you.”

I could tell she wasn’t being serious, but I nevertheless dropped my gaze and said, “Yes, Dr. Chambers.”

Her mischievous smile continued to widen. “Good boy.”

**Finale: To Poke the Bear, Part II (Rebecca), February 2010**

“So we know nothing. Who did this. Why.”

Silence amongst the people in front of me confirmed my words. I closed my eyes in a mixture of disappointment and irritation.

“From BSAA intelligence, no known terrorist group has the resources to deploy a Tyrant; furthermore, terrorist groups usually claim responsibility for an attack to make demands. Nobody has said anything since then.”

I opened my eyes and said, quietly, “Whoever did this, I think they were after me. Specifically.”

Parker furrowed his brow. “Why do you say that?”

“The first target they hit was the BSAA facility. The Hunters only hit the research zone, and were clustered around the biochemistry building where I was. The Tyrant we encountered seemed focused on me, up until your people stunned it and got us out of there. All of this seems very precise for a bioterror attack.”

“Well, you did give us those anti-Plaga pills and the prototype antiviral – the most we’ve had to combat an outbreak, ever. I can see any terrorist group considering you a threat,” Quint spoke up.

I turned to my laptop instinctively, though I’d ensured multiple times that my research data was still intact. Thanks to that CO2 tank stunt we pulled, the Hunters hadn’t caused any damage to anything in the lab space I was in. I had a backup drive at the BSAA facility, but that didn’t survive the attack.

“Way to make her feel better about all this,” Keith admonished. Quint gave him an indignant expression and I shook my head.

“Don’t worry about that. Look, I think I need to leave Bear University. I’m a danger to the student body here, if I’m right.”

“You sure? The students seem like they can handle themselves, like that archer-guy.”

I shot Quint a death-glare. “What?” He protested. “I was thinking we should recruit him.”

Keith turned to him. “You don’t know when to shut up, do you?”

I stood up. “Enough.”

“The Director’s currently wrangling with the US government about sending us in without prior approval…stupid politicians…but once that’s done, I’ll suggest we put you in a BSAA base full-time, at some undisclosed location. For your safety, as well,” Parker said.

I sighed and nodded. “Quint,” I said. “Can you backup and encrypt my research data?”

“Sure thing,” he replied, and grabbed my laptop.

I left the room as we dispersed. Ever since Jill left the BSAA facility last year, after I’d finished clearing her, my work had accelerated dramatically thanks to the intelligence Chris recovered from Africa. I’d taken the anti-Plaga drugs TRICELL was researching – designed to halt a growing Plaga inside the body – and modified it to inhibit an adult Plaga’s mind-control capabilities, thereby allowing us to neutralize anyone infected with a Plaga at any stage of the lifecycle. With years of piecing together bits of information about Progenitor, the t-virus, the t-Abyss, and Uroboros, I had finally developed a prototype vaccine and an antiviral. I’d focused on trying to counter the virus’s ability to affect lung cells to blunt an airborne route of attack and was just starting to improve the formulations for use in the bloodstream. Quint was right. Someone out there knew and had these weapons and that someone didn’t want my work to continue. I smiled grimly to myself – at least that meant I was getting somewhere.

“There you are,” a voice from behind me caught my attention and I turned. It was Claire, who ran up to me and hugged me.

“You guys deployed here now?”

“Yeah. Neil decided not to send many of us…from what we heard, the attack was a small one.” She quickly added, “I mean, not to you, I guess, but –”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Who’s Neil?”

“I stepped down. He’s in charge of TerraSave now. I felt it was time for someone else to lead.”

“I see.”

“The reports were right, though. This attack is unique – no pathogens were detected. Just Hunters and a Tyrant. ‘Just’ being a relative term, of course. They sent me to obtain antivirals and vaccines from you, but it seems we won’t need them.”

“Well, that’s good,” I answered, even as her words reminded me of how surgically precise this attack was. “How’s the campus doing? The students?”

“Fine, actually. Without any viral outbreaks, very few students were hurt. I heard something about a crazy guy with a bow, but other than that…”

I groaned. Claire gave me a quizzical look.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m glad this was relatively contained.”

“Yeah,” Claire said. “Anyway, I should get going. No rest for the wicked, huh?”

I smiled half-heartedly at her and she walked off. I looked out the window for awhile longer, collecting my thoughts, before I departed as well. I’d need to start packing. I didn’t want to leave here, especially given my now-boyfriend, but…I didn’t want him stupidly running after me with a bow, either.


	3. Victory

**Part 1 (MC): A Late Blossom, May 2010**

I walked slowly toward Daisy, who was sitting with her back to me and looking out over Ursa Quad. It was still cold for some reason – it actually snowed last week, somehow – and a soft, chilly breeze blew her blonde hair to the side.

“Hey,” I said, quietly.

Daisy turned and, upon seeing me, gave me a slightly confused look. It was the first time I’d initiated conversation with her for…years, I guess.

I didn’t beat around the bush “I, umm…I’m sorry,” I said. Her confused look intensified and I sat down beside her.

“I haven’t been fair to you. Since Terragrigia. You wanted to put the past behind you, but I couldn’t. And I’m sorry.”

“That…means a lot to me,” she said, slowly.

I paused for a moment, staring out into the quad. “You know…a long time ago, when Jay first told us he liked you, I asked him what he saw in you. I wasn’t being sarcastic or anything – I was actually curious. He told me you had this…inner strength. This determination to overcome anything in your way. It was something he admired, something that inspired him. I’d spend a lot of time wondering what he was talking about and whether he were wrong. You know how it is – you like someone, and you think the world of them.”

Daisy didn’t say anything as she continued looking across the quad toward the setting sun.

“But, well…here you are. About to graduate with a bioengineering degree. About to go to medical school. What he saw in you…I didn’t see it, but now I know he was right.”

Daisy smiled slightly, a somewhat wistful expression on her face. “I dated Tom because I felt safe with him. Like he’d stand up for me and protect me. And then we were in Terragrigia and…the trio. They took charge. We ran into mutated Myrtle and they beat the crap out of her with their bare hands. Jay stepped up to try to save Myrtle and got us through the airport. You kept a cool head and strategized. Nick kept us together. It took me awhile, but I wanted to be like you guys – not a passive _thing_ that needed to be protected. So I came here. I wanted to follow you and your example.”

I laughed. “Some role model I turned out to be.”

She laughed too. “Well, if the point is that I needed to be my own person…”

“You succeeded. Despite me.”

“…Thanks.”

We smiled at each other again and turned back to the sunset. “What are you doing after graduation?” she asked, presently.

“I’m going to Johns Hopkins…for my PhD.”

“Unsurprising,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll kill it there too.”

“I could say the same about you in medical school.”

Daisy smiled again. “So…is it true?”

I gave her a quizzical look. “True? About what?”

“You. Ran into campus with a bow and arrows during the attack to save your girlfriend. Killed an army of Hunters single-handedly. Ran out of arrows and ran in to pull them out of their corpses so you could fight their leader. Bullseye’d their leader in the groin and ruined your arrows because you kept splitting the arrows that were already embedded in his groin.”

My expression changed to bewilderment before I burst into laughter. When I realized she was being at least semi-serious, I laughed harder.

“I…umm…don’t think I should talk about it,” I said. “You know, ongoing investigations and all that.”

Daisy’s tone flattened. “Yeah, I didn’t think any of that was true.”

It was still painful to be separated from Dr. Chambers – I didn’t even know where she went, given the BSAA transferred her to some secret facility to protect her – but we still communicated regularly, through encrypted lines, and I honestly still hadn’t come off the high from starting our relationship.

I stood up. “Well, I should get going. See you at graduation, Daisy.”

“Okay,” she said. “See you.”

**Part 2 (Rebecca): No Rest for the Wicked, May 2011**

My eyes darted around my screen, comparing my notes with the data from the new virus we’d recovered from Claire’s blood. I was concentrating so much I didn’t notice Claire behind me until she spoke, at which point I nearly jumped out of my chair.

“What’ve you found?”

I took a moment to recover. She didn’t apologize and simply looked at me, awaiting an answer. “This virus – the t-Phobos – is based on the t-virus, with very similar protein structure. I’ve determined two major differences: one, this virus has 2 triggers, whereas the t-virus just acted immediately upon infection; two, the genetic material within the virus is completely different. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of it.”

Claire said nothing. I turned to her. “Since the outer structure of the virus is so similar to what I have on the t-virus, though, I was able to clear it from your body.”

“Great,” she said, though her tone didn’t match her response.

I looked at her with concern. “Should you be up? I think you should –”

“I’m fine,” Claire cut me off, bluntly.

“Okay…” I said. I wanted to say more, but…what was I supposed to say? She’d gotten kidnapped along with many of her coworkers in TerraSave, including Barry’s daughter Moira, and was the only one who’d made it back alive. To make things worse, the guy who took her place when she stepped down from her position in TerraSave turned out to be the one who’d sold them out. It was small wonder Claire wasn’t her usual optimistic self.

I decided to keep talking about the virus. “Like I mentioned, there are 2 triggers for this virus. One, as you confirmed, is a fear response; specifically, norepinephrine. The second is a signal, which has some striking similarities to the sort of signal from that Las Plagas parasite Leon first encountered. It means the virus’s action can be controlled remotely.”

“I knew about the first one. What’s with the second?”

“I don’t know. It suggests whoever put this virus into you – this Overseer – wanted to test your resilience to fear for some reason. Depending on what happened, she would then trigger the virus to do…whatever it is she wanted the virus to do.”

“Turn people into monsters. What else?”

“If that’s all she wanted to do, she wouldn’t need a second trigger. Any of the viruses we’ve encountered thus far can do that all on their own. At any rate, this explains why you didn’t mutate even though that bracelet you had showed heightened norepinephrine levels. The Overseer didn’t apply the second trigger.”

“How very nice of her,” Claire said, her tone dripping with sarcastic venom.

“Look, Claire…I know how you feel right now, just…we’re here for you, okay?” My words felt so futile.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, perhaps trying to say something, perhaps trying to keep her calm, perhaps trying to give me some sort of measured response. Presently she just screamed, “ _That_ _fucking bitch_!”

…Well, I hadn’t ever heard Claire say something like that before.

“Neil sold us out to get experimented on. Everyone but me got mutated or killed trying to leave, and then she just shot herself in the head and blew up her lab. _Why the fucking hell did we have to go through that_?! _What was the fucking point_?!”

I got up and put my arms around her as she devolved into angry tears.

“Moira…I left her there. Under a pile of rocks. I still remember Barry, standing in the hall, as they wheeled me into the ICU…he…”

Her sobbing intensified and I held her closer. “I…I trusted him…” she said, again and again. It didn’t surprise me. Claire had fought megalomaniacal bioterrorists before, but betrayal? That was new.

**Part 3 (MC): The Battle Couple, May 2011**

My entire visage brightened as I wrapped my arms around Dr. Chambers, who wasted no time in doing the same to me. I eventually let go around the same time I realized she had an armed guard in the room with her.

“I see you’ve made new friends,” I said. Her guard gave me a singular nod in greeting.

“The BSAA didn’t want me coming out here, but Claire’s my friend. So I insisted until Chris here – he’s her brother – said I could just come with him. He’s not a new friend, either – we were both in STARS.”

“I see,” I said. I turned to Chris and introduced myself, after which Chris indicated he’d wait outside the room and left.

“So…who’s Claire?”

Dr. Chambers sat down. “She’s…or was…the leader of TerraSave. You heard about the attack on their headquarters, right?”

“Yeah. It was on the news. So she got injured during the attack and was brought here?”

Dr. Chambers paused, and said, “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but I’m…not really supposed to talk about specifics. Sorry. I don’t want to keep secrets from you; it’s just –”

“No, no, I get it,” I said. “I don’t want you breaking any laws or anything on my account. I hope your friend recovers.”

“Yeah…” she said, her voice trailing off. “I hope so too.”

“We’re at one of the most famous hospitals in the world. She’ll be in good hands.”

Dr. Chambers didn’t say anything at first and I had a feeling I’d just said something naïve, but then she changed the subject and asked me about graduate school. I talked about continuing my work in tissue engineering and learning about cells making tissues as well as how the host-defense system responds to foreign motifs.

“Hmm. You’re a length scale above mine,” Dr. Chambers mused. “Cells and tissues. I usually focus on molecules and genes.”

“Well,” I said, laughing. “If I did what you do, I’d be a redundancy.”

“I hope you chose this because you enjoy it, not out of considering its relation to me.”

“I know. I was kidding. I started doing this kind of stuff in Cidney’s lab, remember?”

Dr. Chambers nodded. “Speaking of what you did in college, have you heard anything from Tlemsanix since you guys finalized the deal with them?”

“No, actually. I assume they’re using it in Terragrigia now, but I haven’t heard anything. Come to think of it, nobody in the Society has. The people who’re still there are all working on other things and I don’t recall anyone mentioning Tlemsanix Technologies.”

“Alright,” she responded. “Just curious.”

“I…I’m glad,” I said. “I’m in grad school now…I’ll be able to fulfill that promise I made to you. Back in 1998, on the phone.”

Dr. Chambers smiled at me and said, “So silly. You already have. Keep going.”

I smiled back at her, losing myself in the moment, before I snapped out of it and said, “I’m sure you have important top-secret BSAA stuff – I should get out of your hair.”

She sighed. “Yeah…this new virus we got from Claire…there’s something sinister about it. Guess I’d better get back to work. It was really nice to see you, though.”

**Part 4 (Rebecca): Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself, October 2011**

I leapt lightly to the ground from the helicopter, following the others securing the cliff edge. I turned to look at the lone helicopter flying away from the island, as opposed to the ones that had brought us here, and smiled. On that helicopter, Barry was reuniting with his daughter and Claire was…well, I don’t know what Claire was doing, but she’d just gotten revenge on “the Overseer” _via_ a rocket launcher whose effects we could see even as we were approaching the island a few miles away.

“This is Alpha Team. Site secure.”

I turned back toward the opening in the cliff edge, drew my handgun, and entered. Based on Barry’s short message as he was leaving the island, the Overseer, who turned out to be Alex Wesker, had a lab through here where she’d kept an Uroboros sample. Given the destruction from her fight with Barry and the fact that she’d injected herself with it just prior, I didn’t have high hopes that I’d find anything, but I had to try.

We moved further into the cave. Something was bothering me: I recall only scant details about Spencer’s Wesker Project from the files Chris recovered during their raid on his estate, but I do remember that only two Weskers survived the Progenitor injection: Albert Wesker and Alex Wesker. The former gained superhuman abilities, but it seemed that the latter did not, based on Claire’s description of her 6 months ago. That suggested to me that Alex Wesker was one of the 10% naturally immune to Progenitor, but not one of the 1/10,000,000 that Progenitor would impart superhuman traits to. If she weren’t at least immune, Progenitor would have instantly killed her.

But that didn’t add up: Uroboros was derived from Progenitor, so if it affected her to the point of extreme mutation, she must _not_ be one of the immune. Claire also mentioned she wore the same norepinephrine-sensing bracelet that the kidnapped subjects did, which suggests she injected t-Phobos into herself – the fact that she survived shooting herself in the head and mutated even prior to using Uroboros supports this. Why she would infect herself, I had no earthly clue, but it still posed the same question: t-Phobos, being derived from the t-virus, would have no effect on her if she were one of the immune 10%.

I descended into the lab area. A few BSAA agents followed and began dousing the flames dotted around the room. Radio messages from the other teams around the island indicated no hostiles – Barry had done a rather thorough job clearing this place up…not that I’d expect any less from Barry Burton.

I continued my search as the cleanup crew cleared more and more space. A faded red syringe on the ground caught my eye and I went over to investigate and, next to it, I came across a damaged cryo-storage device. Within it, I found an array of vials and I instantly signaled for someone to bring me an iced container to transport it out. I looked around but found nothing else of note. That’s it, huh? I guess it’s better than nothing, I thought.

Alpha Team and I returned to base and I quickly made preparations to analyze the contents of the vials, assigning technicians and setting up NMR, MS, and crystallography. Over the next few days, I found myself double-checking my results, since they didn’t seem right – the vials didn’t contain any viruses; instead, I only detected a few fragments of single-stranded RNA and some non-viral delivery vehicles. Even if there had been a viral coat that had degraded, I should still have found amino acid residues.

Eventually, I decided to run one last assay on the sample and put the remainder into storage. There were RNA fragments, so I thought I should at least know what the sequences were. Unfortunately, the initial damage and time had taken its toll – RNA tends to be fragile, anyway – and I surmised the results wouldn’t be clean.

Afterwards, I met with Barry and Claire. Barry gave me a full report on Alex Wesker and told me that her ultimate goal was to transfer her consciousness into a new body. I remember balking at the notion of Albert Wesker gaining superpowers or Alexia Ashford obtaining fire powers, but this was completely insane. Mind transfer?

But as I thought about it, things started falling into place. Barry’s report indicated that the mind transfer process, however it worked, required the recipient have a strong resistance to fear. That explained why Alex Wesker wanted to monitor her subjects’ fear responses and why she made the t-Phobos virus trigger on norepinephrine – if she deemed a subject “too prone to fear,” she would then apply the secondary trigger and cause extreme mutation.

If she found a suitable subject, she would apply the second trigger, but instead of extreme mutation, direct the virus to begin receiving her consciousness – which likely explained why she needed t-Phobos in her body. Similar to how a someone required a dominant species Plaga within him to command a regular species Plaga in another host, the t-Phobos virus transferred consciousness from one host to another. It was, essentially, mind-control taken to its extreme.

Finally, it explained the RNA fragments I’d found. It was siRNA, intended to repress genetic expression. If Alex Wesker had immunity to Progenitor and its descendants, she would need to repress that immunity for the initial infection of t-Phobos to work in her body. This meant that she knew what genes imparted immunity to Progenitor to the point that she could engineer siRNA to silence those genes.

…Which is exciting, but also infuriating, since the data on the siRNA had several holes in it.

Once I figured this out, I asked Barry for a blood sample from the girl he’d brought back with her, Natalia, since Natalia had been the “chosen” for mind transfer. I was relieved to find no viral particles in her blood. It seemed Alex Wesker and her ludicrous plot had failed.

**Part 5 (MC): The Rise of Hell, June 2013**

My coworkers and I sat together, speaking quietly for some reason, chattering about what had happened over the weekend in Tall Oaks. A massive outbreak at Ivy University. The destruction of the city. And the death of President Benford.

Unlike the attack on Bear University, the attackers on Ivy University didn’t hold back. Multiple monsters and a full-on viral outbreak quickly annihilated the campus and the surrounding town until the government launched a missile to sterilize the area. The routine was depressingly familiar and I wasn’t the only one who mentioned Raccoon City’s name.

Probably the biggest shock was the death of the President. We debated amongst ourselves whether the attack were solely launched to assassinate President Benford. It definitely seemed too coincidental, since everybody in the country knew he was visiting Ivy University and would be giving a speech there. Then again, why would someone cause an entire viral outbreak, complete with monsters, just to kill the President?

“It’s a great way of ensuring success. Think about it. He’s the President; he has Secret Service. Getting an assassin in conventionally would be very hard. Release a virus into the area and you’d infect everyone, including him. If he didn’t get infected, you have the monsters. And if he evaded those, there’s the missile that Simmons launched to sterilize the area.”

“How did Simmons get authorization for that, anyway? The President needs to give that kind of order and he clearly didn’t.”

“Maybe Vice President Kaldwin gave the order.”

“She wouldn’t do that knowing Benford was on campus.”

We paused to contemplate before someone spoke up again: “But…whoever did this…they’re in for an ass-whooping. Because now Kaldwin is President. And having that lady as your enemy ranks between ‘you’re fucked’ and ‘you’re super-mega-fucked’ on the Scale of Being Fucked.”

During the campaign, Adam Benford had shown a firm but kind demeanor. It was difficult to imagine that this man was once in the military. His running mate, Robin Margaret Kaldwin, didn’t induce any such doubt. She didn’t mince words, a refreshing trait for me and my disdain for political games. During debates, her unequivocal evisceration of her opponents brought more than one smile to my face. She hated the corporate elite and on multiple occasions showed inspiring defiance to their lobbyists, noting that had she been in charge in 1998, Umbrella’s top brass would’ve been too busy fending her off to do what they did in Raccoon City. In the end, they complemented each other well – Benford appealed to people who sought compassion in their leaders, while Kaldwin’s presence made any opposing argument that kindness equated to weakness look stupid.

We spent the rest of our lunch exchanging memes about how ridiculously badass now-President Kaldwin was and I went back to my work. I’d just finished setting up a few reagents when my phone went off with a restricted number, which generally meant…

“Hey, Dr. Chambers.”

“Hey. Are you free right now? I’m going to be busy with these new attacks, so I thought I’d call now.”

I looked at my reagents and started awkwardly preparing an ice bucket to keep the reagents cold. “Uhh, sure. So…you guys are investigating Tall Oaks?”

“We were. Then Neo-Umbrella hit Lanshiang.”

“Huh? I hadn’t heard about that. Is that in China?”

“Yeah. You’ll probably start hearing news broadcasts soon. The attacks started last night, I think, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard anything yet. Unfortunately, I can’t really tell you a lot.”

“I know. Classified, right?”

“Well, yes, but also we don’t really know what’s going on. With the chaos in the administration from President Benford’s death and conflicting reports from various teams on the ground, we’re kind of fumbling around here.”

“I see. Do you know what sort of pathogen Neo-Umbrella used?”

“No, except that it’s new. Again. We _do_ know it’s very definitely airborne, unlike the t-virus, and luckily, the antiviral I made does prevent airborne infection. That’s good news for the BSAA agents we’re sending in, as they’re not getting infected by the aerosolized virus, but treating the already infected will be a struggle. This early on, I still don’t know enough about the virus to do anything. Like I said, I’m sure we’ll all have a ton to do once more information comes in, so I wanted to talk to you while I still had time. What are you up to, anyway?”

Without thinking, I answered, “Oh, doing an mRNA extraction.”

“ _What_?! Why are you on the phone when extracting mRNA? Don’t you know how sensitive mRNA is? I thought you said you were free!”

Oh. Crap. “Uhh, I mean, I’m on a wait step. You know, the part where I wait for the centrifuge.”

Dr. Chambers paused and said, “I’ve known you for like 15 years. I can tell when you’re lying.”

I apologized profusely and she laughed. Even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was rolling her eyes. “You’re hopeless. Get back to work. I’ll call you when I can.”

She hung up and I sighed. I went ahead and did my experiments for the day. True to what Dr. Chambers had said, news about Lanshiang did indeed begin to trickle in as the day went on. I wondered, as most of my coworkers ended up wondering, why Neo-Umbrella would attack a US college campus and then a Chinese city – those two didn’t seem to have much to do with one another. Someone pointed out rumors that Neo-Umbrella had something to do with the conflicts in Edonia a few months ago, which begged the same question of what linked a country in eastern Europe, a college campus in America, and a city in China.

I guess if Dr. Chambers and the BSAA didn’t know, nobody did (save Neo-Umbrella itself). I finished the day, rode the bus home, and ascended the elevator to my apartment. I spent a few seconds twisting the key in the lock – for some reason, it always took a few tries – and walked inside to end another long day.

I turned my laptop on and went to unwind by browsing the Internet, only to realize the router was malfunctioning again. Sighing, I got up, walked into the kitchen, and reached on top of the fridge where the router sat. I turned it around so I could see the indicator lights and, as I expected, they were blinking orange. A reset fixed it about 99% of the time, but it was still annoying given how frequently it happened and how much I was paying for Internet.

The reset solved the problem as before and I returned to my computer. I proceeded to browse mindlessly, letting my brain lull itself, before going into my nightly routine and heading off to bed. I’d almost fallen asleep before realizing I’d forgotten to turn on my alarm clock – I marveled at how frequently that still occurred, despite how long I’ve been relying on it.

I stared out the balcony next to my bed, lazily watching the fallen leaves drift around in the wind. Maybe I should go out there and clear the leaves. There were a few autumns’ worth of fallen leaves out there by now from previous years – I never went out onto my balcony. It’s fine, I thought to myself.

**Part 6 (Rebecca): The Reign of Chaos, July 2013**

There were only a handful of us in the van. I recognized Quint, Keith, Parker, Chris, and Jill, but not the rest. Just about all of us had asked each other why we were here or where we were going, and nobody knew. The Director wanted a meeting offsite. That was all.

Given the recent leaks from the information the government had on this Family, trust was in short supply. The data named many Family members in high-ranking positions all over the world, but it also noted there were others unnamed. Governments all around the world were imploding as its members struck at each other out of paranoia, opportunism, or both. Congress was a mess, especially given the Speaker of the House was a Family member and he had promptly disappeared.

The BSAA was no different; luckily, there were enough of us to arrest the known Family members soon after the leak. That didn’t account for any members not named by the leak, however, so everyone was still rightly paranoid that moles continued to operate within our ranks. There was also the matter of legality – just being a member of the Family didn’t mean a person had broken the law, so they could technically continue as they were if they successfully denied any actual wrongdoing.

The leaks also mentioned the C-virus by name and how it was a combination of the G-virus from Raccoon City and the t-Veronica virus from the Ashford family that Claire had encountered in 1998. Go figure – the two descendants of Progenitor I had the least amount of information on and was therefore the least equipped to deal with. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. There was something about developing a vaccine using the blood of Albert Wesker’s son, because he inherited antibodies to the C-virus from his father. This was baffling, since antibodies can’t be inherited and even if they could, Albert Wesker couldn’t possibly have had antibodies to the C-virus as the C-virus was developed after his death, meaning he was never exposed to it. Whoever oversaw this project clearly didn’t know biology.

I looked around the van. We were all armed. Chris immediately thought the entire meeting sounded fishy and wanted us to be prepared for a trap. I had my Samurai Edge, custom modified with those parts I salvaged from the Training Facility way back when. I smiled faintly to myself, remembering a time I showed my boyfriend my gun and he remarked it looked nothing like a katana, postulating the gun maker had worked too hard and was hallucinating.

I wondered what he was doing now. Today’s lab meeting day for him, right? Ever since the attacks on Tall Oaks, we’d all been working so frantically the days all sort of melded together. I went over what we’d learned about the viruses again in my head, trying to plan my next move. I might as well use the time to collect my thoughts.

Of course, the van stopped right as I decided that and we disembarked apprehensively. I looked around – this was definitely a fairly remote area and I only saw a single building. It looked old, but not dilapidated, and I could make out some faint words above the door suggesting this was an old-timey tavern. The Director wanted to meet us at an old-timey tavern?

We approached the door. Two people stood on either side – one, a rather stern-looking man and the other, a young blonde woman with short hair. The man moved to block the door and we stopped.

“You’ll need to surrender your weapons.”

Chris stepped forward. “Leon? What’s this about?”

“You’ll see. Now drop your weapons.”

Chris tightened his grip on his rifle. “Tell me what’s going on here. I’m not letting my guard –“

The door opened behind Leon and a female voice rang out from within: “Enough.”

Leon turned and stepped to the side, allowing the owner of the voice to emerge, and we all collectively did a double-take.

“ _President Kaldwin_?!”

“It’s alright. Leon, Sherry, stand down. They can keep their guns.”

“But, Madam President –”

“I said stand down. All of you, come in.”

She didn’t wait for anyone to respond, instead turning and reentering the building. We looked at each other, then at Chris, who shrugged and followed President Kaldwin. The interior was well-lit and looked much newer compared to the outside. A bar and the few tables scattered around the room confirmed that this was, or at least used to be, a tavern. A single woman was already inside, besides the President.

President Kaldwin sat on the bar and motioned toward the tables and chairs. “We have a few more guests. Feel free to make yourselves at home while we wait.”

A few of us sat down. President Kaldwin watched us with an inscrutable expression. “This was my great-uncle’s. This entire area was a small village, but got hit by a fire many years ago. Most people moved away afterwards. My great-uncle spent his retirement here. I used to come here often and I’ve maintained this place…it’s nice and quiet.”

Nobody said anything. Was it paranoia? Apprehension? Amazement that the President of the United States was talking to us about her childhood and family? All of the above?

The door opened and I was surprised to see Claire walk in, escorted by Sherry. She looked every bit as clueless and surprised as we were, but as soon as she saw Chris, she ran over to us. Sherry smiled at Claire before returning outside. Claire turned to President Kaldwin and asked why we were here, to which President Kaldwin responded telling her to “sit tight and wait.” At that moment, I put two and two together – Claire had mentioned Sherry, the daughter of William Birkin, whom she saved from Raccoon City and who became a government agent. That was her?

More time passed and the door opened again. This time, Leon escorted the newcomer in – and it was Barry. This was growing stranger and stranger. Like Claire, Barry walked over to us and looked over at President Kaldwin in amazement. Leon and Sherry remained indoors this time and stood by the door.

“That’s everyone,” President Kaldwin said, and slid off the bar.

“As many of you have communicated, you want to know why I’ve summoned you here. In short, I am asking for your help.”

She began walking slowly around, her short heels clacking on the shiny wooden floor. “You’ve all heard the leaks, I’m sure. The Family. A secret organization stretching into history, with people all around the world in every government and organization. An Illuminati-style cult playing the world like a stage play.”

She turned to Leon. “Leon had a rather close encounter with their late leader, Derek Simmons, when he avenged my predecessor. His partner, Helena –” she gestured to the woman who’d been in the room when we entered “– did the same.”

Yes, the leaked information was quite clear about Simmons being (1) head of the Family and (2) behind the attack on Tall Oaks. It was somewhat murkier when describing his role in Lanshiang or his connection to Neo-Umbrella, but as I understood it, he was basically behind those too.

“My predecessor, though he made the mistake of trusting Simmons, possessed very clear foresight. He understood the United States needed a response to bioterrorism. When the Family attacked Bear University, some in his administration were outraged the BSAA intervened without government approval. Adam rebuffed them, pointing out we have no response team of our own.”

 _The Family_ was who attacked Bear University? This was news to me.

“As such, he created the Division of Security Operations – the DSO – as a team that would answer to the Presidency. He called it the ‘Sword of the President,’ being the dramatic fellow he was in private. The DSO would be our first and, hopefully only required, line of defense against bioterror on American soil. Without the…intervention…of Simmons, Tall Oaks would not have happened, given Leon’s and Helena’s presence on site at the time.”

I looked at Leon. His face was still mostly expressionless, but I detected a trace of anger. I guessed he was in the DSO and was probably less than pleased that, in fact, Tall Oaks _had_ happened.

President Kaldwin circled back to the bar and turned around, facing all of us, and continued, her voice taking on an ever-so-slight edge. “When he died, Adam bequeathed the DSO to me. He founded the DSO to be the Sword of the President, and I intend to wield this sword to its maximal effect – until every bioterrorist and their demonic creations lie decapitated at my feet.”

I bet my boyfriend would love that imagery, I mused. President Kaldwin leaned back against the bar and concluded: “That brings me to why you’re here. I am inviting each of you into the DSO.”

We looked at each other, confused, and President Kaldwin spoke again. “I don’t mean in the capacity of a full field agent, like Leon, Helena, or Sherry. You will maintain your current positions, but you will ultimately answer to my office. You will be my eyes and ears. Any information, any investigation that we uncover, will also be shared with you such that you can act appropriately to protect our interests.”

“With all due respect, Madam President, the BSAA was founded to be a global anti-terror organization. You’re asking me to elevate the United States above my responsibilities? I’m a patriot like anyone else, but my current duties require me to be deployed around the world,” Chris said.

“I understand; however, I believe there need not be a conflict. The BSAA, you included, will continue to respond to attacks around the world. Defeating bioterrorism internationally will, after all, make America safer. In the event of an attack here, you would be deployed here anyway.”

Chris was quiet. I’m sure there were many legal and political details about this arrangement, both American and international, but either President Kaldwin had already considered all of that, or she simply didn’t care. She always seemed to be excellent at political chess despite showing complete and utter disdain for it in favor of clean and decisive action.

“So you want your own secret organization, with members embedded in the various anti-bioterror organizations around the country,” Barry spoke up next. “You’re basically building another Family.”

“I am. And I hope you understand why – the Family has eyes everywhere, and I need people the Family cannot see. I need people I can trust. In all of your cases, based on your backgrounds and histories, I believe you are the most trustworthy people I can count on in this fight.”

“And how do we know _you’re_ on our side?” Claire asked. I looked at her, startled – besides her asking her question in a soft voice, did she just ask _the President of the United States_ whether she could be trusted? To her face? Though it was a fair question, given the circumstances.

“You don’t. But I will say that if I _were_ a Family member, the men and women in this room right now would be the greatest threats to me. I would have sent assassins after you all, rather than invite you here to speak to you in person.”

I remember one time my boyfriend fanboyed out over one of her speeches when she was still a candidate and cited her lack of mincing words. He was correct.

“Alright,” Chris said. “I’m in. The more resources we have to fight these guys, the better.”

One by one, the people in the room followed suit. I began to voice my agreement when President Kaldwin looked directly at me and said, “Rebecca Chambers, is it? I have a special request for you. If you will, let us speak after we adjourn here.”

I nodded and President Kaldwin made arrangements for the various parties to depart. The numbers dwindled until only Claire, Leon, Sherry, Helena, and myself remained – Claire wanted to catch up with Sherry and Leon while they, along with Helena, were guarding President Kaldwin anyway.

“I asked you to stay because one of our earliest investigations concerns your significant other.”

I blinked. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

President Kaldwin gestured to Helena, who pulled out a device from her pocket and began swiping through it. She turned back to me. “After the data leak, we opened investigations as best we could into several agencies and organizations implicated. Tlemsanix Technologies was one of them; in fact, the entire company was founded by the Family for express purposes of scouting anti-bioterror research and development. Your boyfriend has worked with them in the past.”

I shook my head, my eyes wise with disbelief. “Yeah, he was on a student design team that sold them some IP. He didn’t work for them.”

“That may be the case. It may also not be. Consider that the Family didn’t attack Bear University until immediately after the deal was struck. It seems like a very convenient coincidence. We also know that the Family is very aware of your own work and we are still unsure how. The data, for instance, included this recording.”

By this time Helena had finished pulling up whatever and played a sound recording. In it, a man was speaking with a calm but noticeably angry voice: “You idiot. After all this – an army of Hunters and a Tyrant, Chambers is still alive. You have failed me for the last time, Raymond.”

A different voice – I assume this Raymond’s – came up next. “B-but now Chambers can’t –“

The man didn’t even acknowledge him, continuing on. “Jessica?”

A female voice next. “Yes, Mr. Simmons.”

The recording picked up some footsteps, followed by Raymond screaming desperately and then in agony. “W-wait! Jess, don’t – AAAAUGH!”

There was a pause, where the only sound was some gurgling. Presently Simmons spoke again. “Pack up shop. You’re getting reassigned. I assume you managed to get the sensing device?”

“Yes, we have it on hand, as well as all the specifications.”

“Good. This operation wasn’t a complete waste then. Report to Washington. We’ll continue as planned, despite Raymond’s failure. I’ll have to figure out another way of dealing with Chambers.”

That ended the recording. “Well, that’s terrifying,” I said. “But my boyfriend has nothing to do with this.”

“I hope you’re right, Rebecca, but this woman in the recording – her name is Jessica Sherawat. She is a dangerous known operative who once infiltrated both the FBC and the BSAA – and we knew this before we knew she was employed by the Family. Your boyfriend spoke with her on at least one occasion.”

Helena played another recording. Jessica’s voice began: “Hello; my name is Alicia Hills and I represent Tlemsanix Technologies. I was given your contact information because you developed a device for biosensing – we’re interested in your work and the potential applications for restoring Terragrigia.”

His voice came up next. “Oh, umm, nice to meet you, Ms. Hills. We definitely are working on a device like that. What would you like to know about it?”

“I’m sure something this detailed can’t be explained by phone. Let’s setup a video conference?”

“That sounds great!”

The recording ended. I surmised these recordings were all phone conversations – perhaps Simmons had called into Tlemsanix and talked to Raymond and Jessica, who were actually there.

President Kaldwin leaned back. “Again, Rebecca, I hope you’re right about him. We just want to make sure, given these connections. I’d ask you to provide information on him and perhaps track him for us.”

My eyes widened even more. “I am _not_ going to spy on my boyfriend for you! I’ve known him since before Raccoon City was destroyed; he’s _not_ a bioterrorist! End of discussion!”

I realized the room was quiet and everyone was looking at us. Claire took a few steps toward us. “Rebecca, this might not be a bad idea. It sounds like just surveillance – it would be nice to be certain of his allegiances, especially someone so close to you.”

I shook my head in horror. “How…how could you even…”

But I understood. Claire was haunted by Neil’s betrayal. That still didn’t have anything to do with me, and I wasn’t going to change my mind.

“If this is what you want me to do in the DSO, _I’m out_.”

**Part 7 (MC): Another Child Prodigy, August 2013**

I crossed my legs and looked out over the street. Students were beginning to trickle back from summer break. I missed having summers. Nowadays, summer just meant the time where I was expected to do more work in lab.

I absentmindedly studied the small, wrapped package in my lap. Dr. Chambers had sent it to me to give to Barry and Natalia, who were visiting the campus today. She told me Claire wanted to give it to them, but couldn’t make it, so asked Dr. Chambers if she could send it to me to give to them. I wondered why she didn’t just mail it to them directly, rather than use this complicated chain, but I didn’t exactly mind delivering it anyway.

Dr. Chambers seemed distant on the phone. I think the most recent attacks were wearing down on her, not to mention this large Family conspiracy thing going on. A few professors around the campus were implicated in the Family, but they either denied all association or, in cases where the implication was more direct, denied any involvement in the bioterror activities, noting the Family was a large organization and “some bad eggs” didn’t speak for them all. I didn’t trust them, given the first Family member to be outed had been _their leader_. President Kaldwin took the same stance, declaring a national emergency and suspending the constitutional rights of all known Family members. Some with more political clout fought her in court, saying she didn’t have the authority to do that, with varying degrees of success. I had a sneaking suspicion one of the factors determining success was whether the judge or jury presiding over these proceedings were themselves closet Family members.

None of this really affected me – life went on as usual for us in the ivory tower. The thought had occurred to me that some of my coworkers might be in the Family, but we were graduate students and hardly important. Hell, I couldn’t even help Dr. Chambers with whatever she was doing. If my coworkers were indeed Family members, I don’t think they could be much of a threat anyway.

I pulled out my phone to pass the time. There was more news about the Family, and by news I meant a few more lawsuits and political arguments – in short, nothing had changed. I read through a few articles on video games before a shadow fell on me. I looked up to see a grizzled man with a young girl. The girl stared both intensely and blankly at me and I immediately noticed her hair – a strange mix of blonde and dark hair, as if there were two different colors emerging from her head.

“You must be Mr. Burton,” I said.

“It’s Barry,” was the response. “You’re Rebecca’s, right? Nice to meet you.”

I smiled. “Yup. Great way of putting it. Anyway, she wanted me to give you this.”

I handed over the package and Natalia reached out for it. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice surprised me – it was deeper than I’d expect from a girl her age. I paid it no mind and asked Barry about their visit.

“It was great – for her, at least. She talked the lab tech’s ear off.”

“You were touring a lab?”

Barry nodded. “Natalia’s taken an interest in this stuff. When I told Rebecca, she said that reminded her of you. It seems young people caught around bioterror tend to want to learn more about biotechnology, is that right?”

“Hmm? Natalia was caught in an incident?”

“Yeah. Terragrigia. And then some other shady business with someone trying to mind-control her with a virus. Let’s not talk about it.”

“I see,” I said. “I’m sorry she went through that.”

“She’s a brave young one. Anyway, we were wondering – where’s the food court?”

“There are two main ones,” I said. “One in the outpatient building and the other in the main hospital.”

“Why don’t you lead us to one? We wouldn’t mind you joining us for lunch, if you haven’t eaten yet.”

I shrugged. “Sure.” I led them to the outpatient center, as it was closer, and we split up to get food before reconvening at a table.

“So what sorts of things did you see on your tour?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“Why don’t you answer that?” Barry turned to Natalia.

“We went to an immunology lab. They were running PCR to determine MHC phenotype for the purposes of ensuring compatibility between host and donor tissue.”

I paused for a second. The fact that she even understood the words in that sentence was amazing, and I said as much. “Did Barry teach you that? That’s impressive!”

Barry laughed. “Are you kidding? I don’t know any of that. What, do I look like Rebecca to you? No, she picked that up from reading. She does that a lot.”

“Impressive,” I said again. I turned to Natalia. “And what did you think of their lab?”

“Their high-throughput system for automated PCR was very nice.”

“Indeed,” I said. “I have to extract mRNA and plate manually.”

“Yes,” she answered. “It’s a very tedious and error-prone procedure.”

To be honest, she was beginning to freak me out. There were children smarter than their age, but she seemed _way_ beyond even that. I decided to test her.

“I know, right? My A260/270 ratios never get to 2.8.”

Her response was swift and confident. “You mean 260/280. And usually a value of 1.8 is considered very pure. Achieving above a 2 is nearly impossible when using a manual method.”

I felt my eyes widen in amazement before I caught myself and smiled brightly. I turned to Barry. “You should be proud of her. Her aptitude is incredible.”

Barry laughed again, a hearty, deep laugh, and turned to Natalia. “You hear that? You got a mark of approval from a Hopkins graduate student!”

Natalia didn’t smile. Had she realized that I’d made those mistakes on purpose? I changed the subject and asked Barry about himself. He told me he was retired, but that he used to be in STARS with Dr. Chambers. We exchanged stories about how we’d first met Dr. Chambers, and the entire time, I could feel Natalia’s unnerving gaze on me.

Toward the end of lunch, Natalia said she needed to use the restroom and left. I asked Barry whether they were going to do anything else on campus, and he replied, “Nah. Originally I wanted to take her to a doctor to check out vitiligo, but she convinced me it wasn’t necessary.”

I blinked. “She has vitiligo? I didn’t notice any different skin pigmentation.”

“It’s just on her hands. Her fingertips, actually. Slightly darker. Mostly, her hair is the most noticeable.”

I frowned. “Barry, I know you didn’t want to talk about this, but could you explain the mind-control virus you mentioned?”

“I don’t know a lot about it – ask Rebecca if you want to know. All I know is Natalia got infected with it but the mind control failed because we killed Wesker.”

“…Wesker?”

“If you’re referring to Albert, no, not him. His sister. As if one weren’t bad enough. Anyway, it’s a moot point. The virus failed and Wesker’s dead.”

My mind whirled and I said, “Barry…I’m not sure the virus failed. Her aptitude is way higher than normal, even for a child prodigy. She could probably do my labwork – better than I could – and I’m in _graduate school_.”

Barry seemed a little offended. “Because she’s smart, you think she’s mind-controlled? Rebecca found no viral particles in her blood.”

“If the virus already infected her cells, there wouldn’t need to be particles in her blood. In fact, if her cells are being reprogrammed because the virus already inserted genetic instructions, it would explain why she’s displaying different phenotypes – like the skin discoloration.”

“That’s just vitiligo!”

“Barry, vitiligo is when skin cells _lose_ pigmentation. Affected areas become lighter, not darker. Vitiligo also doesn’t affect hair.”

He took a deep breath. “Look, I know you mean well, but that girl has gone through more horrors than you can possibly imagine. I’m not putting her through more. She’s fine; just leave her be, alright?”

I relented. “Okay, okay. Just a thought.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Barry said, as Natalia returned. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. I returned to lab slightly worried, but eventually shook it off. Natalia was a child, after all – she likely couldn’t do much damage.

I finished the day and returned home. I inserted the key in my lock, preparing for the usual jiggling I needed to do, but the door unlocked immediately. Well, that doesn’t normally happen, I thought.

I shrugged, walked inside, and went through my usual wind-down procedure. I setup my computer and, of course, the Internet was out again. Rolling my eyes in irritation, I walked to the kitchen, but one glance at the router from the door showed all the lights steadily green.

Confused, I returned to my computer and restarted it, which fixed the problem. Shrugging again, I opened up my browser when my alarm clock went off. Startled, I walked over to it and turned it off – I saw it was set to 6:30 pm rather than 6:30 am. That’s odd – I hadn’t reset the time for months as I either woke up at the same time everyday or, on weekends, I simply didn’t turn the alarm on. Speaking of which – I shut the alarm off when I woke up this morning. Why was it on at all?

Something felt off, but I chalked it up to me just forgetting – maybe I’d turned it back on right after I woke up and just forgot. I went back to my computer and quickly lost track of time browsing a pop-culture wiki before getting a call from Dr. Chambers.

“Hey!”

“Hey,” came her audibly tired response. “It’s good to hear your voice. How are you?”

“Same to you. I’m fine. Tired. You?”

“Doing better. Did you see Barry and Natalia?”

I gave her an affirmative and described the day – including what I’d seen about Natalia and what I thought might have happened. Dr. Chambers listened quietly.

“So you think her cells are slowly changing…meaning Wesker is exerting more and more control over her by reprogramming her cells on a biological level. She’s turning Natalia into her. Literally.”

“I don’t know how the virus works, but given what I saw today…”

“Honestly, I couldn’t quite figure out the science behind a virus that lets one host mind-control another, but one thing you said stood out to me. You said her fingertips were different?”

I shook my head, though I was on the phone and she couldn’t possibly have seen me. “I didn’t see them. Barry said her fingertips were darker.”

“Barry’s report indicated that Natalia was able to access all the fingerprint scanners on the island they were on. What you said makes sense. The virus might indeed be changing her genotype and phenotype into Alex Wesker’s – starting with her fingerprints so she could access the island. Natalia was in stasis with the virus for 6 months. Whatever needed to happen probably already did by the time she left.”

We were both quiet for a bit, and then I asked, “So…what now? Barry was very against any more tests on Natalia.”

“I can understand why. I don’t know. But if I get a chance, I guess I’d have to look outside the plasma.”

“Yeah…culture cells, have them make tissue, see which cells give rise to different tissue phenotypes despite being the same cell type, compare genotypes.”

“You’ve learned well.”

I smiled to myself. Her praise always gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. “…Thanks, Dr. Chambers. Anything new with you?”

“Not really. I’m still investigating the virus they used on Tall Oaks and Lanshiang. I haven’t made much headway – the Family covered its tracks well.”

“If anyone can figure it out, you can.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it. Anyway, I’ll let you go. It’s getting late where you are, right?”

“Nah.”

“…Yes it is. Now go to bed.”

“Yes, Dr. Chambers.”

“Good boy,” she said, with a smile I couldn’t see, and hung up.

I went through my nightly routine and climbed into bed – making sure my alarm was set properly – and stared out onto my balcony again as I drifted off to sleep. I noticed large patches of my balcony were clear where they normally were covered in leaves. Maybe the wind had picked up lately?

**Part 8 (Rebecca): Hail Hydra, January 2014**

I burst through the door into the medical bay. Barry was sitting on the bed, looking dejected. Besides that and a large bandage on his shoulder, he didn’t look too hurt. I slowed down and walked over.

He looked up. “Hey.”

“Hey. What happened to you?”

He gestured to his shoulder and said, “Got shot.”

I stared at him for a second and he let out a long sigh. He cocked his head toward a small cooler on the table. “That’s for you. There’s a hand inside. I put it in as much ice as I could.”

I continued staring at him. “You’re…going to have to tell me more than that.”

Barry shook his head. “To hell with this,” he muttered under his breath, then looked back up at me. “Last night, the Family sent a squad of goons to my house. They took Natalia.”

My expression turned from confusion to shock. “I…I’m sorry…”

“That’s not the worst part. They did this because Natalia called them and told them to. She offered to ‘restore order and their rule,’ I think was her exact wording.”

It took me a few seconds, but I soon realized what he meant. “So…Wesker…”

“A few months back, you had us meet your boyfriend at Hopkins. He tried to convince me that Wesker hadn’t failed trying to take over Natalia. Well, I didn’t listen. And it turns out he was right.”

I didn’t answer immediately, and Barry added, “He’s a good pairing for you. Smart.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“The goons came after dinner. They surrounded the house, kicked in the door, the works. Natalia just walked toward them and I tried to stop her, thinking she was just being naïve or something. The goons started shooting at me and I got hit –” he pointed to his shoulder again “– and she just kept on going. When she made it out of the house, I heard another gunshot. She turned and honest to God raised her hand to block the bullet. It ripped right through her wrist. But instead of pain or something, you know, something _normal_ …she just yelled in irritation. And then they left.”

“…So wait, someone from the Family tried to shoot her?”

“No. After they left, the DSO came in. They’d been out there the whole time, trying to stop the Family from taking Natalia. When they realized there were too many goons, they tried to kill her.”

“That sounds extreme. How did they know about all this, anyway?”

“Well, it turns out the DSO was tapping my landline. So when Natalia called the Family, they recorded it. They sent agents to my house to stop her. And they failed.”

I shook my head in disgust, remembering how President Kaldwin wanted to spy on my boyfriend too. “Aren’t you in the DSO? Why tap your landline?”

Barry was quiet for a minute, then said, “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this. In fact, I’ve told you too much already. But right now, I don’t exactly give a damn. After that day we went to Hopkins, you called your boyfriend, right? He told you about what he suspected about Natalia? The DSO was monitoring his phone, too. So they heard. And unlike me, they took him seriously. And they acted…by tapping my line.”

My eyes widened. “How…”

“It was a setup. Claire asked you to send him that gift to give to us so they’d have his address. They’ve been monitoring him and his communications since.”

I sat down in disbelief.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling a swirl of anger and hurt rising in my chest. “I’ll deal with this later,” I said, quietly. I pointed to the cooler. “That’s Natalia’s hand?”

Barry nodded and I stood up. “I’ll start analyzing it.”

I picked up the cooler and left the room. I headed directly to the lab and started making preparations, robotically, trying to drown out the emotions in my head by working. I couldn’t quite figure out what was bothering me more – the fact that Alex Wesker’s control over Natalia had succeeded after all, the Family and Natalia/Wesker now becoming (or had they already been?) allies, the DSO spying on my boyfriend even now, or…

No, it was pretty clear. Claire going this far behind my back and Barry keeping this from me, at the DSO’s behest – that was what was bothering me the most. And I didn’t know what to do about it. The DSO would probably keep taking action against the Family and now Natalia – they probably knew exactly where they were and what they were doing given their flagrant disregard for privacy, I thought ruefully to myself – but was I supposed to confront Claire?

I struggled with my thoughts and it soon became clear to me that continuing on like this was only going to mess up what I was doing – and I couldn’t really afford to screw up preparing the hand for analysis. I called the technicians in and gave them instructions. For the most part, they didn’t react too much to me telling them to cut up a human hand and begin isolating cells. I guess given our line of work – dealing with all sorts of perversions of biology – this wasn’t too extreme.

I sat back as they worked.

**Part 9 (MC): An Offer I Can’t Refuse, January 2014**

I shivered as I walked down the street toward my apartment building, staring at my feet and watching my every step. The ground was icy and slippery. The fact that it was nighttime didn’t help things. Reaching the street corner, I waited for the traffic light to change, then crossed to the front door of the building. A man, bundled up as I was, stepped forward and asked whether I could swipe him in as he’d forgotten his keys.

Shrugging, I said, “Sure,” and unlocked the door. I stepped inside and took off my hood, holding the door open for him to follow. He looked at me for a second…then pulled out a knife and lunged.

Before I could react, I heard something and the man staggered before collapsing, blood pooling below his head, a bullet wound clear at the base of his skull. I stumbled backwards in a mixture of shock and instinct, staring at the newly dead body. I didn’t notice 2 men stride in the door until they were right in front of me. I wasn’t entirely sure how to react, but I didn’t get a chance to, as one of them pulled out something, pressed it against my neck, and I knew no more.

I awoke sometime later in an unfamiliar place. It looked like a hospital bay. I looked around, confused, only to see Dr. Chambers notice my movement and run to my side.

“You’re awake! I’m so relieved.”

“Dr. Chambers…where am I?”

“You’re…at a secret BSAA facility. They brought you in a few hours ago.”

“I…someone tried to knife me.”

She grimaced. “It seems…the Family sent an assassin after you. The DSO killed him before he could, and brought you here.”

I shook my head slowly in confusion. “The Family? Why would they…what’s the DSO?”

She looked at me without answering, her expression growing more pained by the second until I thought she would start crying. I sat up and wrapped my arms around her. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad to see you,” I said.

“I should’ve told you…or something…” she whispered.

She pushed me gently away. “Let me start from the beginning –”

The door opened and we both looked over. And I thought I was hallucinating, because the President of the United States walked inside with 2 others (Secret Service?). Dr. Chambers rose immediately and stepped between us.

“I don’t know what you want, but _you’re not taking him_.”

I was more confused than ever, but also felt a shot of unpleasant surprise and foreboding through my chest. Dr. Chambers only used that tone when she was furious. But wait – she was mad at President Kaldwin? Was _President Robin Margaret Kaldwin_ really standing less than 3 meters away from us?

“I’ve no intention of taking him anywhere. Please calm down, Rebecca.”

Dr. Chambers didn’t move. President Kaldwin turned toward me, looking past Dr. Chambers’s shoulder, and said, pleasantly, “It’s nice to meet you in person at last.”

I could feel my expression turn into one of complete and utter bewilderment. “I’m…hallucinating. The guy who knifed me killed me. I’m delirious from dying. That’s it.”

President Kaldwin gave me an amused expression before bursting into laughter. She was the only one – I had exactly no idea what was going on and Dr. Chambers was still completely on edge.

“No, this is very much real. The Family, whose newest member considers you a threat, dispatched an assassin to eliminate you. Per their protocol, they did not want your death to look like an assassination, so they opted for one dressed as a street hoodlum and armed accordingly. My people, who have been monitoring you, stopped him before he could kill you, and subsequently brought you here.”

My expression didn’t change and I looked blankly at Dr. Chambers.

“You have questions, I expect. But first…we were monitoring you to assess whether you had any ties to the Family. We have concluded that, in fact, you do not; furthermore, we believe you to be someone we can trust. Since 1998, after meeting Rebecca, you have studied to combat bioterrorism. Your contributions to Bear University’s Society of the Phoenix were borne from a desire to fix Terragrigia – whose destruction you survived personally – not to aid the Family. And –” President Kaldwin smiled “– I understand you unhesitatingly attempted to counter the attack on Bear University with a bow and arrows. You are an ally, not an enemy, of the United States.”

Dr. Chambers looked at me, then back at her, and spoke up. “You can’t possibly mean…”

“I recall telling you I just wanted to be sure of your boyfriend’s loyalties. I was telling the truth. Now that I am sure of his loyalties, the investigation is concluded. Moreover, I told you I need people I can trust. He fits this criterion; therefore, I am inviting him into the DSO. I would also like to re-extend my invitation to you. We need you, Rebecca. You are our greatest mind.”

Dr. Chambers turned to me, giving me a rather dumbfounded expression. I looked around the faces in the room. Finally, I swallowed and said, slowly, “With all due respect…I really need someone to explain this to me. From the beginning. Like I’m five.”

President Kaldwin laughed again. “I will leave you two be. Rebecca can explain this to you. I believe it prudent to allow both of you time to consider my invitation.”

She gestured to her two companions and they all left the room. Dr. Chambers sat back down.

“She gathered a bunch of us awhile back to invite us into the DSO – the Division of Security Operations, which is her secret, anti-Family task force. She specifically picked us because she knew we weren’t secret Family members and, well, you know. When fighting this super-secret Illuminati group, that’s important.

“That day, she told me she knew about you – given our relationship – and indicated she wanted the DSO to spy on you. Tlemsanix, that company you guys liaised with, turned out to be a front for the Family. Since you guys struck a deal with them, they suspected you.”

I shook my head. “That’s insane!”

“I told her as much. She said she wanted to ‘make sure,’ but I told her I wanted nothing to do with this. So I declined her invitation. I…I should’ve told you. Despite everything, I still kept a secret from…”

“No, no. That would’ve been illegal or something, right? You would’ve gone to prison.”

“Who cares?”

“ _I_ care.”

She was quiet and I kept going. “I get it. I mean, sure, it feels weird and honestly, uncomfortable, that this top-secret government agency was spying on me, but I guess it makes sense. And I don’t want you getting into trouble because of your relationship with me.”

She looked at me with a sad smile. I hugged her again.

As I let go, I start musing. “Come to think of it…I kept noticing things that were off in my apartment. The door being unlocked, my alarm clock doing weird things…the other day I realized my router had been repositioned and someone was definitely on my balcony. I thought I was being dense or forgetful. Now it makes sense.”

Dr. Chambers grimaced again. Presently she continued. “That day, Claire…she supported President Kaldwin. She…someone close to her once backstabbed her. So I understood why. But I would later learn that she went behind my back to get your address by tricking me into mailing you that gift to give to Barry. That’s how the DSO knew where you live…and how, from what you just told me, they apparently broke into your apartment.”

She seemed so upset. “I had no idea she’d go _this_ far. When I found this out…just days ago…I didn’t know what to do. And before I could figure it out, well, they brought you in here.”

“So…they know I’m innocent now?”

She threw up her hands. “Apparently. If they’d listened to me, they would’ve known that already.”

“Well…they don’t know me like you do.”

She smiled again, less sad this time.

I nodded, slowly. “So…that’s the DSO. What does the Family want with me?”

“Remember you telling me about Natalia? You were right. Alex Wesker did end up taking over her body and she’s now with the Family. I’m guessing she noticed your suspicions and, given you were with Barry, a former STARS member, she decided you were dangerous.”

“I guess I should be flattered,” I quipped. “So…now what? Do I go home?”

“No,” Dr. Chambers said. “…Or did you miss the part about the Family wanting you dead?”

I chuckled. “Fair enough. I guess…the DSO will tell people I’m missing? Or injured? How am I supposed to finish my PhD?”

Dr. Chambers finally smiled her mischievous smile and said, “I could be your advisor now.”

“That has to be the least ethical thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine. Now kneel before me and kiss my feet, or you’re not graduating.”

“You don’t need to blackmail me, you know,” I responded, giving her my own mischievous smile. We both laughed, dispelling some of the tension, and I said, “Seriously, though…what now?”

“You’re right. The DSO will probably put out a report that you’re…somehow incapacitated. You’ll stay here. And…honestly, I could use your help. When the Family took Natalia with them, she left her hand behind. I’ve been trying to analyze its cells, like you mentioned.”

“…Natalia’s hand comes off?”

Dr. Chambers looked at me for a second before rolling her eyes and laughing. “You’re hopeless.”

“That’s the Dr. Chambers I know,” I said, giving her an encouraging smile. “So…I guess I work for President Kaldwin now, huh? I’ll have to step up my game.”

“I hope so, for your sake. The President is not as forgiving as I am.”

**Part 10 (Rebecca): The Building Blocks of Life, April 2014**

For close to a decade I’d been trying to figure out how to develop a drug to fight off Progenitor and its derivatives. I studied the molecular structure of a seemingly never-ending line of viruses – and anytime I thought I might have a drug to combat one of them, a new one emerged. Sure, my work wasn’t completely in vain, but I was always playing catch-up. My best countermeasure to date was the prototype vaccine I made prior to the Tall Oaks attacks, but recently, given that I’m now privy to the DSO’s secrets – in particular, the experiments previously run on Sherry Birkin – I came to realize that the part of the C-virus derived from her father’s G-virus would have overcome my vaccine if it were injected or somehow ingested.

But now…I think I’ve made some real, concrete progress toward a complete countermeasure for Progenitor. After we recovered Natalia’s hand, we isolated as many tissues as possible, extracted cells, and cultured them to determine their phenotype. We took cells with different phenotypes that really should’ve been the same and did karyotyping and sequencing. And after just a few months of analysis, I have an idea of what genetic makeup provides a person with immunity to Progenitor – that 10% from Spencer’s files (though I now think that number should be much lower than 10%; perhaps Spencer had a biased sample or he simply didn’t know math).

Having my boyfriend at my side was nice in multiple ways. His skills in cell culture and tissue analysis complemented my more biomolecular expertise and it was great having a second person in the DSO versed in science. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the people in the DSO were primarily combatants and I couldn’t rely on the research team of the BSAA, as studying Natalia’s hand was considered top-secret (how would Natalia, now with the Family, react if some mole leaked that we were studying the genetics from her hand?). But for the most part, this was the first time we were actually working and living together. He often remarked that, minus the constant impending threat of bioterror, this was the happiest time of his life thus far.

President Kaldwin had asked for a progress update. She was quite keen on having a biological countermeasure to the various viruses, for obvious reasons. So, per protocol, the members of the DSO in the BSAA left one by one at different times for different meeting places, where we could connect to the DSO’s private network and communicate virtually. The measures the DSO had to keep our existence and operations a secret were astounding. Even more astounding was the amount of clandestine intelligence and surveillance that went on. President Kaldwin favored observation over action in the short term. For instance, she had a list of known Family members, but randomly picked only a few known Family members to launch public investigations on. The others she just had the DSO monitor. They, believing they had escaped notice, largely let their guards down, allowing DSO agents to gather information about the Family more easily than they could’ve otherwise.

It was scary for her to have this much power. Even my boyfriend, who once staunchly supported her, voiced some reservations to me about what would happen once someone else became President or if she decided she wanted to abuse this power.

I sat down, signed into the many layers of security on the network, and waited. The others blinked in one by one. President Kaldwin began the meeting by asking Quint to provide some updates on his information-gathering.

“We now know that Natalia – now calling herself ‘Illumina,’ has become head of the Family,” he announced. “Given the head was usually connected to people related by blood to Simmons, the Family was leaderless after Simmons’s death. Simmons didn’t have a descendant, which is unsurprising because…well, his ‘wife’ was a bioengineered clone. Now the Family has a head again. And they’re mobilizing for something big.”

“What the hell kind of a name is ‘Illumina,’ anyway?” Parker asked.

“The girl thinks she’s a goddess. Of course she’d pick some sort of pompous, divine-sounding name.”

“Alright,” President Kaldwin interrupted. “Do we know what they’re planning?”

“Not yet. Mostly we have intel on Family members falling in line behind their new leader. People say she’s a miracle worker – she regrew her hand at will, for one. Someone else mentioned a guy known as Chairman Focker tried to oppose her and she uppercut his head off in one hit.”

“Now I get why she didn’t seem too worried about losing her original hand,” Barry muttered.

“Okay. Surveillance will continue. How is the BSAA’s combat preparedness?”

“We’re ready for anything,” Chris responded. “Do we know more about their bases in Australia and Alaska? Should be beef up forces near there?”

James spoke up next. “The Family is converging on 3 bases – the active ones who aren’t in the public eye, anyway. We don’t know where the third one is, but there are definitely ones in Alaska and Australia – deep in the wilderness. We haven’t really gotten much information beyond that, since one advantage of being in the middle of nowhere is nobody goes out there, so if we sent people out there they’d get detected immediately.”

“We’ll think of something. Chris, focus on ensuring ETA to any of those locations is a minimum rather than building up near them. I don’t want any moles alerted to us knowing about these bases.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. Rebecca, what’s your status on the genetic analyses?”

I pulled up a file. “We isolated different cell populations from Natalia’s – I mean Illumina’s – hand. We found 2 distinct genotypes. From analyzing the differences between the two and cross-checking with known databases, we’ve determined there are seven genes where having a specific allele for each gene will impart immunity to Progenitor and all its derivatives.”

“ _All_ of its derivatives?”

“Yes. 4 of these genes govern proteins for cell-virus binding. Specific alleles will impair the binding, but will still allow some virus to inject its genetic material. The next 3 genes will prevent the viral genes from inserting into the host and causing mutations; without those, mutation will be slower, but will still happen. The thing is that all these sequences are very highly conserved among species, explaining the ability of Progenitor and its derivatives to infect and mutate a wide variety of organisms.”

“Is it possible for someone to alter Progenitor such that it overcomes this immunity?”

“No. Viral genomes are small, so a lot needs to happen in a small number of bases. Progenitor’s ability to infect and mutate is tied to these sequences. Change these sequences and the virus ceases to function.”

“So any strain of Progenitor or anything made from it that can cause infection/mutation will be blocked by those 7 genes.”

“Alleles. And correct,” I replied.

“That’s amazing,” Jill said. “Think about all the horrors we’ve seen from this virus. Progenitor, the t-virus, the G-virus, t-Veronica, t-Abyss, Uroboros, t-Phobos, the C-virus…did I miss any? We now know how to neutralize them. All of them.”

“And any new variant of Progenitor that anyone can ever come up with,” my boyfriend added.

The meeting was quiet as the implications sunk in. I spoke up again. “We’re not done. I want to make sure I got this right with more experiments – and I want to cross-check with the siRNA we recovered from Alex Wesker’s old lab. And then…I need to figure out how to make a vaccine or antiviral with this information.”

“I see. Then we’ll count on your continued work,” President Kaldwin said.

“Wait,” Chris said. “This is immunity, right? This doesn’t explain how Progenitor gives people superhuman traits, like happened with Wesker. This Wesker too, it sounds like.”

“I haven’t figured out how that works, but I haven’t been trying to. My priority is determining how to make people immune to the virus.”

He nodded, and the meeting concluded. I went to sign off when Claire spoke up. “Rebecca, could you stay on? I…I need to talk to you.”

“I…am busy. I need to get back to the lab ASAP,” I said, and signed off without waiting for an answer from her. I hadn’t talked to her about what she did. I couldn’t bring myself to. I thought about how she’d violated my trust and how the DSO had literally invaded my boyfriend’s apartment and…I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her.

I returned to base. It was late when I got back and retired to my dorm. A few minutes later, I heard a knock at my door and my boyfriend popped in.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I thought the meeting went well,” he said, walking in and leaning against the wall.

I smiled. “It really feels like we’re getting somewhere, huh?”

“It does.”

“But you didn’t come here to say that. What’s on your mind?”

He closed his eyes, smiling dejectedly. “You see through me so easily. I…wanted to talk about Claire.”

“What about her?”

“I…I feel bad that I’ve kind of messed up your friendship. And I think…I mean, based on what you told me, someone betrayed her, and I think she was trying to look out for you. She wanted to protect you from me – and I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you, but she doesn’t know that.”

I sighed and cocked my head to one side. “You think I should just…forgive her? Let this go?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Besides…the DSO wouldn’t have been there to save me and bring me here to you if not for her, right?”

“Well, Illumina wouldn’t have sent that guy to kill you if you hadn’t been tricked into meeting her.”

“But if I hadn’t been tricked into meeting her, I wouldn’t have noticed her phenotypic changes that alerted us to Alex Wesker controlling Natalia.”

It was my turn to close my eyes and smile dejectedly. “I seem to remember us having this conversation…but in reverse. Me telling you to give someone another chance, you saying I’m always seeing the best in people…”

“Well, it’s my job to learn from you, right?” he said, with a short laugh.

“It’s our job to learn from each other,” I answered. “But…you’re right. You know…when you were in Terragrigia, I was having dinner with Claire. She was the one who convinced me to apologize to you for that time I thought you were a burden to me. She reminded me that the people in my life are important.”

His visage brightened. “That makes her my heroine! You must forgive her.”

I laughed aloud. “Okay, okay. Let’s…talk to her together. I’ll call tomorrow or something.”

**Part 11 (MC): Fighting Virus With Virus, November 2014**

I finished signing on and waited nervously. President Kaldwin usually announced her meetings to us in rather short notice, but this one gave us about 2 hours’ notice. I assume something big had happened and we would need to respond urgently. Was it Illumina and the Family? Likely, I thought. Who else was there anymore?

The meeting began with President Kaldwin saying, “We’ll skip the pleasantries. Leon?”

“We’ve received intel on the Family’s plan. Illumina has modified her t-Phobos virus and created the Final Order Virus, or FOV. The FOV, in short, isn’t designed to kill the people it infects. Instead, it’s designed to mind-control them.”

Though we were all in different places, meeting virtually, I could feel the apprehension rise. Leon continued. “The FOV uses the same technology she had in the t-Phobos virus. She modified it by adapting Albert Wesker’s P30 chemical. This means, by using the same way Las Plagas used to communicate and subjugate, she can remotely mind-control anyone infected with the FOV – and she doesn’t need FOV in her system to do so. She intends to spread this virus around the entire world, like Wesker tried to do with Uroboros. In fact, the missile delivery system she’s using matches what Chris saw in Africa exactly.”

“…There has to be a maximum range for the mind-control, right? You’re saying she can enslave the entire planet wherever she is if she infects everyone with this?”

“That isn’t clear, but –”

“There isn’t a max range,” Jill interrupted. “I would know. Look, where is she? Where is her base? We need to hit them and fast,” She seemed uncharacteristically agitated. I certainly didn’t consider this good news, but she was a veteran. Shouldn’t she be used to this stuff by now?

“There are 2 bases. One is in Alaska and the other in Australia. Illumina intends to launch planes from Alaska loaded with missiles in the summer, maximizing the chance that people will be outdoors. Of course, it’ll be winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so she’ll send a second wave from Australia a few months later as a clean-up just in case some people escaped the first wave.”

“Good,” Chris answered. “That give us time to take out the Alaskan base and then move down to the Australian base.”

“This…isn’t a long-term solution, Chris,” President Kaldwin said, softly. “We can destroy their base, sure, but that just alerts them to our intel on their plans. Unless we take out Illumina herself, she will simply try again, with more safeguards this time. Rebecca?”

“Yes ma’am?” Dr. Chambers answered.

“We know how to impart immunity to Progenitor, correct? The FOV is a derivative of Progenitor, since it is based on t-Phobos. The genes you reported will block the FOV.”

“…Well…yes, if we’re sure the FOV is a Progenitor descendant. The problem is…we would need to give every man, woman, and child in the world this genotype. I don’t even begin to know how to do that – I’ve been trying to come up with a way to design a drug that will block the virus the same way an immune person would, with little success thus far.”

“Well, I have data files on FOV,” Leon said. “As I understand it, the virus is the same as t-Phobos. What it does after infection is the different part. I’ll send those over now.”

“How did we get this intel, anyway?” Claire asked.

Leon shrugged. “I have my connections. What’s Wong with that?”

“Oh,” Claire said. “Nothing Wong with that. I was just asking.”

Dr. Chambers looked over what Leon had sent while the rest of us sat with nervous silence. This is what Illumina meant by restoring order to the world, I thought. The Family has championed “order” through its history – their definition of “order” with them in charge, anyway – and that obviously went to hell when the data leaked after Lanshiang. It would explain how Illumina first got so many in the Family to back her – if she touted her ability to subjugate all of human free will with them in charge, they’d be all for that. I assumed she consolidated her power within the Family after getting a foothold afterward.

“Well, you’re right,” Dr. Chambers spoke up. “The FOV works exactly as t-Phobos did in terms of how it infects cells. Someone with the genetic makeup immune to Progenitor would indeed be unaffected.”

“So now we just need to figure out how to change every person’s genes in the world,” Keith said, with only a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well,” I said, slowly. “If we made a virus to insert the immunity alleles into the genome and released that around the world, that would do it.”

Dr. Chambers frowned. “You’re right, but…I don’t really like the idea of engineering a virus. Controlling where the genes insert so we don’t cause mutations will also be a problem.”

“Okay, we could use a non-viral mode. A polymer vehicle, or –”

“– which wouldn’t be all that effective in terms of transfection rate or stability of gene insertion,” Dr. Chambers cut in. “No, I think you were right the first time. We’ll do it. Engineer a version of FOV to impart the seven alleles to every person in the world. Then we’ll need to deliver it – before Illumina launches her missiles.”

“If we try to gather up planes and build missiles to do something this big, it’ll alert someone in the Family for sure,” Barry said.

“Then…” I spoke slowly again, hoping I wasn’t sounding completely insane in front of the rest of the DSO. “We hit their Alaskan base and replace the payload in their fleet with our virus. Cause a distraction somewhere so we can do this without them detecting us. When they launch their fleet, thinking they’ve succeeded…they’ll deliver the virus for us. As a bonus, if we do this right, they won’t know that everyone’s immune to Progenitor afterward. All they’ll know is the FOV failed somehow.”

“We’d need to cart a rather large amount of virus into their base,” Dr. Chambers said. “Something compatible with their missiles. Without them catching on.”

“I’ll give you what information I can on their base and setup,” Leon said. “I’m sure Chris’s report also has some information you can use. There’s only one plane, stocked with missiles.”

“The more infectious and resilient the virus is, the less we need to bring in,” I said. “This is probably why Wesker thought a single plane with Uroboros missiles could infect the entire world. Progenitor and its descendants all spread rather quickly and easily, right?”

“Yeah. We all know that from experience,” Leon replied. “Lots of experience.”

“It’s a risky plan,” Jill said. “If it works, yeah, we’ll have prevented Illumina’s mind-control and it will take her a very long time before she realizes her virus and anything else made from Progenitor no longer affects anyone. But we need a backup plan. A lot can go wrong. We can’t let this mind-control virus get out, under _any_ circumstances.”

“If something goes wrong during the strike on the Alaskan base, we’ll push in and destroy it. It’s not a good long-term solution, but it’s a fallback,” Chris answered.

“Alright. Rebecca, I want you to review Leon’s intel and confer with Chris as necessary to determine whether making and smuggling in an engineered virus is even feasible. If it is, start development immediately. If not, I want you to determine whether there are other ways of spreading this virus.”

The meeting ended and I returned to base. I wondered whether my idea would work – it was definitely risky, as Jill pointed out. I tried to figure out a safer way as I drove. Engineer the virus, infect ourselves, walk outside, mingle a lot? We’d miss more rural areas and, given it was winter, infection may be slowed. Using the Family’s plane, specifically designed to infect every corner of the planet, was the most surefire way of delivering these genes.

The other route was to destroy the bases if we knew where Illumina herself was and take her out conventionally. That had its own risks – we didn’t know where Illumina was and we might not by the time summer came around. She was also apparently a superhuman, and even if we took her out, there was nothing saying some underling of hers couldn’t just try again. Or, maybe she had some sort of kidnapped backup body waiting that we’d miss.

I got back to base without coming up with anything better. As I returned to lab, I almost ran right into Dr. Chambers.

“You’re distracted,” she said with a smirk.

“Just thinking…did I say the right thing?”

Dr. Chambers folded her arms and gave me a disapproving look. “I thought I told you to stop second-guessing yourself.”

“I know…it just seems like such a crazy idea.”

“We deal with crazy all the time, if you haven’t noticed. We’re fighting a girl who was mentally taken over by a dead woman who thinks herself a goddess and wants to mind-control the planet. Your plot is boring in comparison.”

“I guess…”

“Besides, if it were a completely stupid idea, someone would’ve said so. Trust me – Chris, Jill, and Barry have been at this for years. I have too, I guess. We just need to push on and have faith that we can pull this off.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Dr. Chambers.”

She smiled back encouragingly. “Now you stop doubting yourself. Actually, if it’ll get your mind off things, I thought we could play a game.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s go to my room. I’ll explain.”

I followed her and she pulled out a notebook. “I’ve…been drawing for fun. But I’m not great at all, so I thought…I’ll draw something, and you tell me what you think it is.”

We sat down together. Something was off; I could tell.

She opened the notebook and began drawing, leaning close, making large lines with her pencil, and then wrote, in the center, _Want to tell you something. Need to keep secret._

Oh, okay, I get it. “Uhh…an elephant?” I asked.

She glared at me. “No. Let me try again.”

She pretended to draw something again, and wrote, _Figured out eighth gene and allele to accept Progenitor’s superpower ability._

My heart skipped a beat. Aloud, I guessed, “Okay, okay, a rhino.”

“Argh,” Dr. Chambers said. “It’s a jackal. Here, _you_ draw one.”

I took her pencil and did the same, before writing, _The one in ten million?_

“That looks nothing like a jackal. Wow, this is sad. Let me try drawing something else.”

Her next message read, _Yes. Not having all 7 alleles = death. Having all 7 alleles but not 8 th = immune. Having all 8 = superhuman if infected with Progenitor. Virus in Natalia gave all 8 alleles + Progenitor genes. Is how she is superhuman, but AW wasn’t_.

My mind whirled as I considered the implications of this. Mostly I was scared for Dr. Chambers. I could think of any number of people who would want this information who wouldn’t have her best interests at heart. And as much as I hated to admit it, I had to consider President Kaldwin herself as one of those people. As for the finding itself…was she considering including the 8th allele in the counter-virus? I instantly didn’t like the idea of the entire world’s population becoming potential superhumans.

Finally I said, “That’s a…coffee machine.”

“You suck,” she said, giving me another fake glare. “You try.”

I scribbled questions about whether anyone knew or could know about this and she responded no. Finally, I wrote, _Destroy this. Nobody should have access to this info. Scary for humanity and the world. Don’t want people hunting you for it either._

“A dragon,” she said, looking at my message, before taking her turn and responding, _I’m glad you agree. Have idea for using against Illumina, but will delete all info._

“Dr. Chambers, I love you, but I think you should stick with being a scientist.”

She gave me a fake frown and said, “ _Fine_. You’re not much better either, you know.”

I smiled and gave her a kiss. It bothered me that we needed to be so secret in everything we did and said. Living with the knowledge that the Family was everywhere had made us very paranoid. And…well, the entire secrecy routine we were now versed in as part of the DSO, with President Kaldwin routinely demonstrating how adept she was at pulling the strings…I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel more and more uneasy as time went on. If ever I found myself on the opposite side of President Kaldwin, I’d be absolutely terrified. I eagerly looked forward to a day when we wouldn’t need to be scared any longer.

**Finale: Ozwell Spencer’s Dream, Part I (Rebecca), May 2015**

We were quiet as the plane flew toward Alaska. I looked at my boyfriend, who sat directly in front of me, his eyes fixed at the ground in front of him. I smiled ever so slightly – he reminded me so much of myself in 1998, sitting with the STARS Bravo Team on our way to the Arklay Mountains.

After we all confirmed that we were going to go with this counter-virus idea, the question immediately emerged on whether he would be coming along. I didn’t want him to, of course – he didn’t belong in the field – but he knew I’d be going, and he was already starting to worry, months before the mission. There was also the issue of secrecy – implanting the virus in the missiles was the main objective and the one only the DSO knew of…and the DSO was very small, which was the reason I was going to be deployed in the first place. We needed every person available. Leaving him behind wasn’t prudent.

I gave him a crash course on how to use a gun. He asked if he could just use his bow and I wasn’t entirely sure whether he were being serious. I snapped at him that day and he didn’t argue. Just because I knew he needed to be here doesn’t mean I had to like it.

We developed this virus at breakneck speed, a task made even more difficult as the rest of the BSAA couldn’t know what we were doing. We had to be creative in how to recruit BSAA researchers to perform some of the labwork while ensuring they didn’t know the big picture of what they were doing. My boyfriend dubbed the virus the “God-buster,” or GB, and I sort of went along with it because I didn’t care what we called it. When we made our report to the rest of the DSO, we referred to it as the GB, and immediately various people tried to guess what the acronym meant. Doug guessed “George Bush” and…that’s the name the DSO latched onto. I thought the entire thing was silly, but I understood we were all on edge and needed some comic relief.

I went over the virus again in my head, even though I knew that if there were something wrong with it, something I’d missed, it was too late to change it. I’d already injected all of us with it in an incredibly anxiety-inducing day. Beforehand, we’d ensured we would deliver the correct genetic sequences. We’d ensured it would be able to infect just about every human cell type we could get it to. We’d ensured it would insert the genes in locations that wouldn’t adversely affect the host. We had to get the virus to replicate without killing the cell. There were a host of other considerations, like ensuring the viral payload would override the host’s regular expression of the seven genes, or how to deal with host-defense. Nobody in the DSO showed any adverse events and some quick blood tests afterward indicated everything had worked as intended…but it was still scary to think about.

There were 3 others in the plane with us: the DSO’s top field agents, Leon, Helena, and Sherry. They would be escorting us into the hangar. In accordance with how stealthy we needed to be, there were only 5 of us. Every other person assaulting the base was approaching from the other side, on different transports – and that force was gigantic. They were there to make the absolute biggest mess they could. The rest of the BSAA knew this to be a Family base, with anticipated heavy resistance, but that was all they knew. DSO members were sprinkled throughout the squads and I didn’t really envy them. They needed to contend with the mission on top of the possibility that Family moles were embedded in the troops fighting alongside them.

“This is Alpha Team. Going in,” Chris’s voice came on over the radio. The attack was beginning.

I saw my boyfriend swallow, but otherwise he and his gaze hadn’t budged. I tapped his shin with my boot and he looked up at me. I smiled in encouragement at him and he gave me a faint smile in return.

“You going to be alright?” Leon asked.

“Yeah…I hope so,” he responded. His voice was even less confident than his words were.

“Word of advice: relax. The more tense you are, the worse it’s going to be,” Leon said. “Just follow our lead, and you’ll be fine.”

He nodded and Leon added, “Trust me. I’ve had to escort someone before and she wasn’t even armed, nor did she know how to fight at all. You’ll be fine.”

Sherry looked up sharply at him and Leon shook his head. “I wasn’t referring to you.”

“I was about to say,” Sherry grumbled. “I was, like, 10. And Claire babysat me, not you.”

“Alright, we’re closing in. Get ready.”

I checked my gear as the plane descended and we put on the backpacks full of the cryovials containing GB. We landed in the snow rather jarringly and leapt out as soon as we stopped, running toward the base through the white wilderness. The base was, unsurprisingly, mostly underground – it probably helped them avoid detection and keep things warm in the icy northern climate.

The radio crackled to life with Barry’s voice. “Bravo Team here. We’re holding the northern entrance.”

“Roger that,” Leon responded. “Delta Team, what’s your status?”

“Just as expected, we’re facing the heaviest resistance. But we’re fine!” I could barely make out Jill’s voice over the sounds of carnage.

Jill’s team was directly on the other side of the base from where we were headed. She had the biggest force with her; the fact that the enemy knew to fortify where she was hitting definitely meant someone in the BSAA had tipped them off. Of course, this was all according to plan. We needed as many enemy combatants away from where we were as possible.

We reached the entrance. 2 of us on either side flanked the door while Leon broke through it. We rushed into an empty hallway and Leon quickly consulted his phone before leading us through it. I still wasn’t entirely sure whom Leon got his intel from, but he seemed confident that it was trustworthy.

We met only a few hostiles as we moved along. Leon, Helena, and Sherry wasted little time in dispatching them. I had my gun out, but I hadn’t even had to point it at anyone thus far. We continued hurrying down hall after hall, the radio constantly abuzz with reports about the battle on the other side of the base. It was going well…I think.

Eventually, we approached a set of large double doors. Leon held up a hand. Sherry looked behind us and he motioned for Helena to follow him as they kicked the doors open. We filed in – the room was empty and full of computer panels and screens. On the other side of the room from the door, a large window overlooked a vast hangar below.

“We’ll secure the room. You two get down there,” Leon said, pointing to a door on the left. I nodded and ran toward the door, my boyfriend right behind me, and burst through. A set of stairs down later, we emerged into the hangar and ran toward the large stealth bomber in the middle.

According to Leon’s intel, the bomber could fly unmanned. As such, it was mostly just cargo space and the missiles were just stocked in the fuselage in a few different compartments. The plane would open one compartment once it reached a preprogrammed location and release the missiles, which would fly in preprogrammed directions before detonating and spreading their payload into the atmosphere. When the plane reached another preprogrammed location, it would open a second compartment, and so on.

The missiles themselves were fairly simplistic in design – they took cryovials of concentrated virus, thawed them, and aerosolized the contents during detonation. It was a process only an extremely resilient virus could survive; unfortunately, Progenitor’s descendants fit that criterion in spades.

We entered the bomber, unpacked, and got to work, opening the missile compartments and replacing its cryovials with ours. I packed their vials into the backpacks, intending to bring them back to base to study them further, and found myself handling them with heightened anxiety despite the fact that, because I’d already injected GB into all of us, the contents were completely harmless to us now.

The radio chatter continued until Parker’s voice came up. “Heads up, everyone! We’ve sighted Jessica Sherawat!”

“So this is where she’s been hiding,” Chris muttered.

“Who’s Jessica Sherawat?” my boyfriend asked.

“You know her as Alicia Hills,” I responded, my voice lacing with anger as I remembered just how much grief she’d caused both of us.

“I…see,” he said, pausing for a second before continuing his work.

“We need to apprehend her,” Jill yelled. “Delta Team’s pinned over here; is anyone close enough?”

“Negative. She’s leaving, damnit!” Parker growled.

“Where’s she going?”

“I don’t know; further into the base?”

“I hope this place doesn’t have a self-destruct system or something that’s she’s heading to,” I grumbled. “Then again, she wouldn’t do something like that with this here.”

We kept going. Suddenly, we heard a door slam over the radio and Leon’s voice. “We…have company.”

I froze and looked around, unsure about whether to stop loading the missiles and prepare for a firefight. A female voice sounded over the radio, but faint, as if a distance away, saying, “Oh, hello. I see we have some more uninvited guests.”

“Good news, everyone,” Leon’s deadpan voice came on. “I found Sherawat.”

My boyfriend gave me an alarmed look. I shook my head and motioned to the missiles and we continued loading them, working as quickly as we could – not that we were exactly taking our time before. “Calm down,” I whispered. “Don’t panic, or you’ll break these.”

We heard Helena next, her voice full of dread. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do with that bomber down there, but it can’t be anything good. Your conspiracy ends here!”

Jessica Sherawat’s pearly laughter suggested that she was taking the bait. We finished one of the compartments and moved on to another.

“And how exactly do you think you’ll stop me? Because you’re between me and the control panel? I didn’t come back here to use it – I just wanted to take one last look at my plane before it took off.”

Before it took off?

A few seconds later, I heard the engines whirring to life. A robotic voice announced, “Launch sequence initiated. Commencing runway thaw and engine warmup.” We both froze and looked around in alarm and apprehension. My boyfriend gestured to the missiles and we went back to work – whatever we did, we needed to finish the job.

“The Mistress would’ve liked to wait awhile, but she doesn’t mind ascending to her throne a bit ahead of schedule. And now, to fulfill her last order for me…”

A gunshot rang out in the control room above us. We stopped again, and Leon spoke over the radio. “…She just shot herself. That was…unexpected.”

Helena’s voice came on next. “She activated everything by remote control. The plane’s going to take off by itself!”

“How long do we have?” I yelled into the radio.

“Umm…let me…here’s the control panel. There are…3 stages. There’s…the runway outside needs to thaw while the plane’s engines turn on. Then the roof will open and the platform the plane is on will rise above ground. Then the plane takes off down the runway. There isn’t a timer here,” Helena answered, elevated panic in her voice.

“Can you stop it?”

“I’m going to try,” Leon answered. “Helena, Sherry, watch the door.”

“We need to finish loading this before the plane takes off,” my boyfriend whispered. “Come on.”

We kept working. I wondered whether Jessica Sherawat had committed suicide due to fanatical devotion to Illumina or if Illumina had simply infected her with FOV. I leaned toward the latter, though it probably didn’t matter much at this point.

“Damnit! The system’s locked; I can’t –”

“Runway thaw complete. Opening roof. Clear the hangar area,” the robotic voice announced.

A rumble above us heralded the beginning of the second sequence. We’d both become hyper-focused, working as fast as possible while staving off panic. We were almost done. One more compartment after this one. We could make it. Load it and leave.

Leon spoke again, this time using a direct frequency. “I can’t stop the sequence! Rebecca –”

“Roof open. Raising platform.”

I felt us begin to ascend immediately. “No, we’re getting this done! Pull out and get the plane running; we’ll meet you out there!”

“I’m counting on you!” Leon said. I paid him no mind and continued on. Open the compartment. Unlock the missile. Unscrew the wall. Release the holder. Replace vials. Replace the holder. Repeat. Replace the wall. Move on to another missile.

The platform below us stopped suddenly as it reached its maximum level. “Platform locked in. Performing preflight check.”

One more missile.

“Warning. Payload not secure. Initiating automatic realignment.”

The missile in front of me began pulling back into its holder. My boyfriend jumped next to me and reached out, grabbing the missile to stop it.

“Come on…hurry up…” he said, his voice strained with exertion.

“Warning. Payload not secure. Initiating automatic realignment.”

“Okay, hang on,” I said, working frantically. Replace vials. Replace the holder. Repeat.

“Warning. Payload not secure. Takeoff sequence will commence while continuing automatic realignment.”

The bomber began to move. My boyfriend’s eyes widened in alarm and he loosened his grip on the missile. I reached out and grabbed it before it could retract.

“I got the missile. Finish loading it,” I said. He nodded and picked up where I’d left off. The bomber accelerated, shooting down the runway, and he inserted the last vial and slammed the missile wall back into place, giving each screw a quick twist. I let go, my arms sore, and the missile retracted into its holder.

I grabbed our backpacks and he grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the front of the plane. We burst out of the rear cargo hold just as the bomber began its ascent into the night sky.

“Uhh, good news guys, all the missiles are loaded! Bad news…we’re still on the plane.”

“What?!” About 5 different people said the same thing with the same tone into the radio.

“Damnit! Push forward – we’re taking this base!” Chris yelled.

I wasn’t entirely sure what the point of that was, unless maybe just in case the bomber’s autopilot was programmed to return to the base and he wanted the BSAA to hold the area.

“They’re surrendering!”

“They must know the plane’s taken off,” Jill said. “To them…they’ve won.”

I looked around me as we braced against the wall. There wasn’t a separate cockpit – just this empty space between the front of the plane and the rear cargo compartments. There were also no controls. This plane flew solely unmanned. I looked out the front window as the plane continued climbing toward the blinking stars.

I set my radio to the direct frequency and called Leon. “This is Rebecca. Can you track us?”

“Working on it,” he said. “Regardless…you two are in it for the long haul. All we can do is try to make sure we’re wherever you end up landing.”

“Roger that. Keep us posted.”

“Yeah. Well, you two enjoy the flight.”

My boyfriend let out a short laugh. “I wasn’t ever one for traveling,” he said. “But…I’m on a free flight. I can’t complain.”

I turned off the radio and he followed suit. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” I said. I could barely look at him, trapped up here – he should never have been out here with me.

“No, no. Dr. Chambers,” he said, leaning close to me and grabbing my hands. “Look, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out. And…there’s nowhere on this planet I’d rather be, right now, than here, next to you.”

He looked directly into my eyes, his gaze pleading with me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Besides,” he said. “We barely made it in the nick of time, and both of us were loading those missiles. If you’d been here alone, you wouldn’t have finished on time. See? I totally needed to be here.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re great at ruining the moment, aren’t you?” He smugly smiled back.

The bomber reached some sort of cruising altitude and we no longer needed to lean against the wall. We walked to the front and looked out the window – of course, there wasn’t much to see. We turned back and sat on the ground, our backs against the side wall and our legs stretched out in front of us.

“I still love how you still have those boots,” he remarked presently.

I laughed. “Is that what’s on your mind? Well, like I said…they’re comfortable, durable, waterproof…the only thing they’re not is breathable.”

He squirmed a bit next to me and I said, “Are you cold?”

“Nope,” he replied.

“I still think about Professor Maple and them sometimes,” I said. “I just…after my first mission, Professor Maple took it upon herself to look after me. And then she sent me off to do my internship in Houston…and I never got to talk to her again before the city got destroyed.”

“They were great,” he said. “Never treated me like a kid…even though I was one.”

I smiled. “Do you ever wonder how your life would be different? If you hadn’t gone to Raccoon University all those years ago?”

“I…not really. I don’t really want to think about it. My life as it’s been…the trajectory it’s taken…I don’t want to think about a life without this. Without you. Without meaning in my personal life and in my job. I feel…fulfilled.”

He turned toward me. “I mean it, you know. No matter what happens, I’m glad…I’m glad I met you and got to spend the time with you that I could. I’m glad I got to contribute to the war on bioterror like I have, both by myself and with you.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I responded. “You and I will have many more years to spend together. It’s too early to say things like that.”

He smiled at me and I added, “But I feel the same way. Even though I feel selfish for saying this…deep down inside, I’m glad you’re here with me now.”

He closed his eyes. “You’re not selfish. Not at –”

A rumbling sound in the rear of the bomber interrupted him. “One of the missile compartments is releasing,” he intoned. He picked up his radio, turned it on, and called in. “In less than five minutes, George Bush will be released into the atmosphere,” he reported.

“Roger that,” Sherry’s voice emerged. “We’ll keep monitoring the situation on the ground.”

**Finale: Ozwell Spencer’s Dream, Part II (MC), June 2015**

“…And that’s the final compartment,” Dr. Chambers said, sighing. She called it in and Sherry’s response still indicated that nothing untoward had occurred around the world as the missiles launched. In fact, very few people even seemed aware of it.

A few minutes later, I felt the plane turn. Once it stabilized, I asked whether anyone on the ground could tell our trajectory. Presently, Leon answered, “It looks like you’re heading for Europe. You’re approaching from the southwest.”

“So we’re not going back to Alaska, I take it.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Alright. I guess we’ll do some more waiting.”

I leaned back against the wall. “Tired?” Dr. Chambers asked. I shook my head. I wasn’t lying – the tension was keeping me wide awake. I cycled through a variety of locations in my head, trying to predict where the bomber was headed. It was likely somewhere east of the Atlantic and north of the Equator. Russia, maybe? It would be a fitting area – Russia had some remote places one could hide a base. If not, then…

My eyes widened. “Dr. Chambers.”

“Hm?”

“I think I know where we’re going. It’s Terragrigia.”

She furrowed her brow. “What? Why? The city’s destroyed.”

“Some of it is still above water, especially some of the buildings, right? If Tlemsanix was a Family front, it would make sense for them to be interested in what we were doing in the Society of the Phoenix if their goal was to build a hidden base in Terragrigia’s ruins. And nobody would think to look there – it’s a ruined city. People aren’t even allowed there since it’s cordoned off.”

She nodded, slowly. “Okay. Let’s call.”

We got on the radio and I relayed my thoughts. “I’ll start getting people prepared,” Chris’s voice came on. “If we’re mobilizing to the Mediterranean, it’ll take some time. We might need to call in the other branches of the BSAA.”

“If Terragrigia’s the Family’s third base…we’re headed right into their front door,” Dr. Chambers murmured.

“…I’ll do everything I can to make sure reinforcements are there as soon as possible,” Chris answered. “The West African branch is the closest. I’ll give them a call immediately.”

I felt the bomber begin descending. “Where are we now?” I asked.

“A bit south of Spain.”

“…We’re descending. I think I’m right. We’re headed right for Terragrigia.”

“Alright. Hang on. We’ll get there as soon as we can.”

I took a deep breath and got up to go look out the window. Dr. Chambers walked up beside me. “Now I feel even worse about this. You’re the last person who should be going to Terragrigia.”

I turned to her and pulled on her jacket a few times. “Stop apologizing. It’ll be okay. I mean…look on the bright side. Last time I came here I had to pay for the flight.”

She gave me an expression that was a mixture between enraged and heartbroken. I tugged on her jacket again. “We’ll figure something out. And the BSAA will come.”

She put her arms around me and we stayed like that as we continued our descent. I remembered that guy from Veltro with the gas mask talking about circles of Hell as I looked out the window, the plane lowering closer and closer to the ruined city. Even in its broken state, the aquapolis in the Mediterranean Sea looked gleaming in the sun.

I wondered what kind of politics the BSAA would need to go through to get forces into Terragrigia. If I remembered correctly, the FBC took control of the city when it was destroyed, so when they dissolved, control would’ve gone to the BSAA, right? Otherwise it would be an international mess getting American, UN, and now African forces to coordinate an assault on this city in Europe.

“Let’s get away from the window,” I said softly, and we retreated toward the rear of the space. I sat against the wall again and Dr. Chambers followed suit. And we waited.

The bomber landed and eventually a shadow loomed over the window, suggesting we’d entered some sort of building. Dr. Chambers drew her gun and I did the same. We both looked toward the rear of the plane – the only entrance was the entrance to the cargo area. Eventually the plane stopped and a loud rumbling behind us, followed by a crash, suggested some sort of door had closed.

Presently, we heard some muffled voices. “My Mistress, scans of the aircraft show all missiles launched successfully.”

“Excellent,” a female voice responded, dripping with smug malice. I could tell it was coming from a phone or radio. “You will all come to the throne room to witness my ascension…together, as a Family.”

“Yes, my Mistress.”

We waited a few more minutes before Dr. Chambers motioned for me to get up. I put on my backpack, she did the same, and we slowly opened the door into the cargo area. The missile compartments we’d so frantically worked on were now open and empty as we passed them and hit the button to open the rear door. A few tense seconds later, the door had opened all the way, but there were no signs of life anywhere in the room.

Scrambling out of the bomber, I took a deep breath. It was nice to be outside the plane…I guessed. Looking around, I noted a heavy bulkhead behind us – likely where the plane had just entered from. The room was dimly lit and mostly empty save for the bomber we’d arrived in and another plane – it looked like a Harrier. A single door in the corner seemed the only way out. Dr. Chambers seemed to reach the same conclusion and we jogged lightly toward the door, flanked it, and opened it, guns pointed ahead.

There was nobody on the other side and we found ourselves in a somewhat more brightly lit hallway. We crept along, listening intently for any voices. It didn’t take too long for us to encounter some and we quickly ducked into an adjacent room.

Dr. Chambers kept her eye on the door as I looked inside the room. It was surprisingly well-lit and seemed to be used for storage. There was a typewriter on one of the crates – typewriters still existed?

“Hey, here’s a map,” Dr. Chambers whispered. I turned around and she pointed to a what looked like a fire escape map. It seemed a bit too convenient, though it didn’t seem to surprise her, and we studied the map for a few minutes. Eventually we made out the hangar that we’d arrived in and, roughly speaking based on the hallways we’d traversed, where we were at the moment.

“It looks like there are two areas,” Dr. Chambers whispered. “The path here leads to an underwater base. We’re above ground. The exit is right by the elevator down. We’ll need to get through…this set of rooms here –” she pointed to a block of 8 rooms, 4 on either side of a hall “– to get there.”

“Where’s the throne room? We should avoid that – it sounds like everyone here is going there. And that’s…if Illumina is here, that’s where she is.”

“Hmm…I don’t see anywhere labeled ‘throne room.’ We’ve got the testing chambers we need to get through, here’s a guard post, here’s…this room is labeled ‘Regia Solis control’…I think the throne room is in the underwater base.”

The Regia Solis was still active? And the Family was in control of it. Well, of course they’d be. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to worry about that. “Alright,” I whispered. “We’ll just have to be careful once we clear the testing rooms as we near the elevator down to the underwater base.”

Dr. Chambers nodded and we took one last look around the storage room, searching for anything else we could use, before leaving. The hallway was now clear and we hurried along, using the map as a guide, arriving at the wing with the testing rooms before long. We scuttled toward the door leading to the rooms, pushed through, and immediately heard a few voices down the hall. Quickly, we pushed into one of the adjoining rooms and kept our heads down.

I looked around the room. In stark contrast to the places we’d just passed, this room wasn’t well lit at all. I saw a handful of computer panels and displays and, on the wall, a large glass tank. Within the tank, a man was strapped to the wall, his lower body locked inside a metal box also attached to the wall. He seemed…strangely familiar. I walked over for a closer look. Myriad IVs were visible in his arms and neck, snaking into the wall behind him. His eyes were slightly open and his mouth was fully open, though no sound emerged. Maybe the tank was soundproof? It definitely looked like he was trying to scream. His body twitched violently, again and again, and his gaunt face depicted the very definition of agony.

“Oh, and what do we have here? Tourists at a museum?”

I whirled around, but nobody had entered the room. Dr. Chambers scampered toward me and stood with her back against mine.

“Up there,” she said, pointing with her gun. “A camera.”

“…Wait. I know you. Both of you. What are you doing here, I wonder?”

“That voice,” I said, my tone low and full of dread. “I remember from Natalia. It’s Illumina.”

“I suppose it matters not. You will both be my slaves soon, along with the rest of this world. And…while you’re here, before I utterly enthrall your minds, why don’t I show you what fate awaits you as my slaves? Look behind you again.”

I turned back to the man in the glass tube. He hadn’t stopped twitching. “This man, like you, like the girl whose body I took and enhanced – he survived what happened to this city, years ago. His name is...Tom Buchanan – not that his name is of any use to him now.”

…So that’s why he seemed familiar. I hadn’t recognized him immediately because he was so gaunt, a far cry from the muscular guy I remembered from high school.

“He worked in an insurance company and offered his services to me. To the Family, actually. Sometimes I forget these people existed before I came along. With his access to patient health information, he sold the Family data and gave us leads on whom to seek for our experiments. We had a…mutually beneficial agreement.”

I found myself unsurprised that, even now, I was disgusted by this piece of human trash.

“And then he was fired. Sexual harassment, I think it was? It was around the time I took over the Family. Suddenly he was…significantly less useful to me. He came to me and begged me to restore him to some position where he would continue to serve us. And…I agreed. Perhaps not as he was expecting. He’s not getting paid now, for one.

“I am always perfecting my viral technology. At the time I wondered how my Final Order Virus would respond to pain. Pain, not trauma. So I placed him in there. IVs keep him nourished and awake. They also continuously feed into his body a drug I designed to keep all his nociceptors – pain receptors, if you will – active. This has the beauty of him not dying from injury. He has no injuries. Well, except his vocal cords. My scientists begged me to allow them to sever those because his screams were distracting.”

I looked back into the tank. Well…that explained a lot.

“He isn’t infected with anything mutagenic or infectious, of course – those would likely skew my results. He will remain there…hmm, how long as he been in there? I don’t remember. A few weeks, at least. That’s the thing about data – you collect it and lose track of when you started. And with this man, I can continue collecting data. And I think…even if I do decide I have enough data…I am quite proud of this setup. I designed it myself, you see. I think I’ll keep him going.”

I looked at Dr. Chambers, who had a horrified expression on her face. I wonder if it made me a terrible person that I felt nothing.

“That is your fate as my slaves. I do think a sample size of 1 as I have there is too small. And now…”

“We should leave,” I said, heading toward the door.

“W-what? Why aren’t you…?” Illumina sounded confused. I surmised she’d tried to activate FOV, which meant now was the perfect time to escape as she wasted time being confused that her virus had failed. Dr. Chambers followed me and we left the room, running down the hall. Illumina now knew we’d escaped her mind-control. Who knew what she would try to do next.

The large elevator came into view and, just beyond it, the exit. We burst through the exit, guns pointed ahead, but saw nobody – which was all for the best, since the sudden sunlight nearly blinded us. The fresh air was welcome even as the ruined city around me reminded me of the desolation that had visited it all those years ago. Directly behind us, the city stretched into the watery depths. I gestured in front and we ran down a broken street until we reached a building and ran inside. A quick glance around told me we weren’t in the tourist sector – that was unsurprising.

“We should stick close to the entrance. If we need to escape. I’m wary about the structural integrity of these buildings.”

I nodded. “I hope the BSAA gets here soon. We should call in and get an update.”

“Okay,” Dr. Chambers answered, pulling out her radio.

“Rebecca? Thank God you’re alright. We’re running into some issues mobilizing to cross the Atlantic, but the West African branch is –”

Jill stopped talking suddenly and Dr. Chambers and I shared a concerned look.

“What?! Ugh, we don’t have time for this!”

“Jill? What’s going on?”

“We just received word the plane from Australia just launched.”

“Illumina must be trying again. She knows the FOV didn’t work with the plane from Alaska.”

“We can’t divert forces south! We need to get to Terragrigia!”

I wasn’t entire sure whether Jill were talking to us or to someone else. I looked up at Dr. Chambers. “I guess this’ll be the first true test of GB,” I said.

She grimaced. Jill’s voice came back on. “I’m going to do my best to get people over there. For now, Chris is going to connect you with the West African branch. They’re on their way. Rest assured –” her voice took on a steely edge “– we’re going to take down that mind-control psycho.”

“Got it,” Dr. Chambers answered. After a minute, a different voice came on.

“This is Sheva Alomar of the BSAA. Do you copy?”

“Copy. This is Rebecca Chambers.”

“Okay, we have a lock on your location. Just sit tight. We’re about 4 hours out.”

“Easier said than done,” I muttered.

“Let’s keep moving. We should try to get as far away from the base as possible. 4 hours is plenty of time for Illumina to send people out for us.”

I nodded. “Good call.”

We left the building, looking around, and began walking in a general direction away from where we’d come from. It was chilling to look at the ruined buildings and cars – I also saw a few skeletons, bleached from the sun and time – as I remembered how the carnage began. I remembered the view from our hotel room, high up on the 12th floor. I remembered the view from the tram tunnel, just a few stories above ground. I remembered the glimpse we got from the airport as we scrambled to escape through the baggage chutes. It was so eerie now that it was quiet – though, I guess it was actually a good thing, as it meant Illumina’s minions hadn’t yet found us.

“Are you okay?” Dr. Chambers asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah…just…taking in the sights. It’s a nice vacation spot. I would know.”

“It’s okay to say you’re scared, you know.”

I chuckled. “You know I’m not a traveler, but I thought I’d take you somewhere nice one day. Some sort of sunny vacation place. This…isn’t what I had in mind, though.”

“Well, then let’s get through this, so I can hold you to that.”

We smiled at each other, a mixture of relieved tension and an attempt to hide our heightened tension from each other.

Time passed and we kept walking. Neither of us knew where we were going, of course, but what else were we going to do? Eventually Chris came back on the radio.

“There’s too much red tape going on. Jill got clearance to go over with only a few agents. Me, Jill, Claire, Leon, and Barry are on our way. We’re on the fastest jet I could find…just hang on.”

“Jill’s had her own run-in with mind-control,” Dr. Chambers murmured. “It’s small wonder she’s so gung-ho about getting here and stopping Illumina. It sounds like we’re going to get the entire old gang over here.”

“They need to cross the Atlantic. I hope they get here soon.”

We stopped in another ruined building to take a break. We still hadn’t seen anyone from the Family and I hoped it would stay that way. Maybe Illumina was waiting until the plane from Australia launched its missiles before she made any other moves.

“What was it like in STARS?” I asked.

“There’s not much to tell. I was in STARS for all of a month or so. They were nice to me. I still felt like the odd one out, though. Being so young. You know, I’ve sometimes wondered what it felt like to go through school and life normally, like you did. Not always younger than everyone else.”

“Well…it’s pretty unexciting,” I said.

She laughed. “That’s kind of the point.”

“If you could go back, would you slow down? Not skip grades and go to college early?”

She thought for a bit. “…No,” she said, at last. “I’ve lived through some crazy things, but…it’s let me do what I’ve done. Like you, I don’t have any regrets.”

I smiled. “That’s nice to hear.”

More time passed. And finally, the radio came to life. “This is Sheva. We’re going to secure a perimeter around the base. Josh will go to your position. Stay there.”

“Roger that,” I said into the radio, and we waited. A helicopter appeared soon after and a group of soldiers gestured to us to get on. Josh introduced himself as “Josh Stone” and said he would bring us to the BSAA perimeter. We gave him as much information as we could about the base as the helicopter flew back.

“Should we wait for the others to get here? What’s their ETA?”

“We need to storm the base. It’s underwater, right? We don’t want anyone escaping through a submarine or something. You two will stay at the perimeter. We have enough troops to take the base.”

Dr. Chambers and I shared an uncertain look. “Trust me,” Josh said, then turned to his radio. “Sheva, we have them. Are you ready?”

“Roger that. We’ll start the assault.”

The helicopter landed shortly afterward amidst the BSAA forces. They hadn’t brought too many troops, which was disappointing but understandable given the short notice. I wondered if we’d be getting reinforcements – from West Africa or from North America, besides Jill’s ace team. I had a sinking feeling we’d need them. The radio next to us began coming to life, broadcasting sounds of battle as the BSAA troops entered the underwater base. Josh motioned to most of the remaining troops on the ground and led them into the base.

“They’re facing pretty heavy resistance,” Dr. Chambers intoned, her face full of worry. “Illumina’s here. The people defending this base are going to be her most fanatical…either by choice or not.”

“And if they have this much trouble with just her minions…”

Dr. Chambers shook her head. “I’m calling Jill. We need to warn them. We need to keep coordinating with whatever forces we can reach.”

Jill responded, “Our ETA is about an hour. I’m still trying to get more forces mobilized. I think our best bet is going to be Josh and Sheva calling for more reinforcements from their end.”

“An hour, huh? Chris wasn’t lying when he said he’s flying the fastest plane he could find.”

We sat back. Slowly, the BSAA began making some headway into the underwater base. They were mostly running into small corridors slowing them down, it seemed – it made for easy defense for the Family forces. As we waited, a noise behind us signaled that Jill’s team had arrived. We hopped out of the helicopter as they ran toward us.

“Josh? Jill and company have arrived,” I said into the radio.

“Heh. You really brought the cavalry, huh?” came the response.

“Well, I have a personal bone to pick with Illumina,” Claire said. I noticed then that she was toting a _rocket launcher_.

“Yeah, so do I,” Barry grunted.

Dr. Chambers began repeating some of the base layout information she’d given Josh. Chris nodded and motioned to the four behind him. “We’re going in. You two stay out here.”

We retreated to the helicopter as the five entered the base. A few minutes later, all hell broke loose.

“We’ve sighted Illumina!”

“…That’s Illumina? A 20-year-old girl?”

“Twenty?” I asked. “I thought she was, like, seven.”

“She probably aged herself up. Does a megalomaniacal eugenics goddess really want to be a little girl?” Dr. Chambers mused.

“Who cares what she looks like? Shoot her!”

Gunfire sounded, and then Illumina’s angry voice, off in the distance from the fire. “ _What did you do to my virus_?! You people weren’t in Australia. _Why didn’t it work_?!”

I smiled at Dr. Chambers. “You win.”

“ _We_ win,” she corrected, but her demeanor didn’t change as she stared worriedly at the radio.

“Get out of my way, cretins! I’m going to figure this out!”

We heard a few loud crashes in loud succession through increased static and Dr. Chambers’s expression darkened. The noises continued and Dr. Chambers began getting up, her alarm intensifying.

“Did she really just chuck me across the room?” Jill’s annoyed and strained voice came over the radio. “She wasn’t bluffing when she said she crafted the perfect body for herself. Can someone…stop her! Anyone!”

Dr. Chambers looked at me, alarmed. “I’m a medic. I need to go help them,” she said. She looked around the helicopter, picking up what supplies she could find, and we jumped off the helicopter again and ran toward the base.

As we ran, I said, “She got thrown across the room into a wall and she just sounds mildly annoyed. What is that lady made of?”

“Jill? Jill’s made of Jill. The toughest substance on the planet,” Dr. Chambers responded as we hit the elevator and descended.

There was absolute carnage as we emerged from the elevator. Injured. Dead. Dr. Chambers took a step forward, looking around, trying to figure out what to do. She turned to me. “Go further in and check if anyone has medical supplies. I’m going to start back here.”

I nodded and ran down the narrow corridor. It wasn’t long before I emerged in a large white room with a large, gleaming throne in the middle. The injured bodies on the ground starkly contrasted the marble-like, pristine walls and floor.

I ran over to Jill, who’d propped herself up against the wall. “Dr. Chambers sent me to find medical supplies,” I said. Jill gestured to Sheva, behind me, lying on the ground, struggling to get up.

“I’ll get the medics together and start coordinating with Rebecca,” she said. “For now…what are we going to do about Illumina?”

“Where’d she go?” I asked.

Chris spoke from the other side of the room. “Up the elevator. We didn’t pursue her since…well…”

Sheva went on the radio and began getting the squad medics together. Dr. Chambers appeared soon after to join them. As she did so, my mind whirled. Illumina was now obsessed with figuring out what had gone wrong with her plan. It seemed she wanted to leave rather than fight. So…

“She’s going to the hangar,” I said. “The one we came in. If she went upstairs, she must be going to the above-ground base. The hangar’s there.”

Leon propped himself up. “We need to stop her. And then…then what? She made ragdolls of all of us.”

“The Regia Solis,” I said. “If we can get to the controls, we can activate it and torch the city. Trap her here. Evacuate the troops. Burn everything behind.”

“That just might work,” Barry put in. He clambered to his feet and immediately crashed back down. “Alright, let’s…ARGH!”

“I’ll go,” I said. “Where’s that rocket launcher Claire had?”

Dr. Chambers looked sharply up at me. “You can’t. You barely know how to use a handgun.”

“I’ll go with him,” Claire said, limping up behind us. “I’ll head to the hangar while he activates the Regia Solis. You stay here and keep treating the wounded.”

Dr. Chambers paused for a second, then looked at Claire. “…You take care of him.”

“I will,” Claire said. “We’ll watch each other’s backs.” She gave me a small smile. I remembered how she had struggled to trust me and…it seemed I might have earned her trust now. I smiled back, then turned back to Dr. Chambers, who stared at me with worry written all over her face.

I leaned in, pulled her head toward mine, and kissed her, deeply and intensely, before letting go and gesturing to Claire that we needed to hurry. We wasted no more time in rushing back out of the underwater base and up the elevator. Bursting through, I led us down the halls we’d traversed just shortly ago and stopped at a junction.

“The hangar’s that way,” I said. “I’ll set the satellite.”

Claire nodded. “Good luck.”

We parted ways and I rushed down the hall toward where I remember the map indicated the Regia Solis control room was. Luckily, I found it without much issue. The room was dark and full of large computer screens and panels. In the center, I saw a pillar surrounded by metal containers – maybe servers?

I rushed to the computer panels and searched for something I could do. It took me a few minutes, but I found the program and asked what the coordinates of Terragrigia were in the radio before inputting them into the control system.

“Guys, 7 minutes. 7 minutes before the satellite gets into position and starts torching the city. Dr. Chambers, is that enough time for evac?”

“Yes,” she said. “Now you and Claire get back to the perimeter!”

I turned to leave. And Illumina was right there, at the entrance, staring at me with a demonic fury. She looked nothing like Natalia – she was older, about 20, with short blonde hair framing her face. She wore completely white. The main thing I noticed immediately were her eyes – red, unnatural irises with thin, menacing slits for pupils. I guessed her presence here meant Claire had successfully cut off her escape.

“You. _You_ did this. What did you do to my virus?! _Tell me_!”

I backed up – not that there was anywhere to back to – and looked at her defiantly. “You didn’t say ‘please.’”

She took a step forward. “You come face-to-face with Death and this is your reaction? Fool boy.”

“I don’t fear death,” I said, softly. “I’m not like _you_.”

I pulled out my gun and pulled the trigger. She nonchalantly slapped the bullet to the side before it could land.

“Oh come on!” I shouted. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen if I used a gun!”

“You are a fool in more ways than one. Let me enlighten you.”

Before I could react, before I even knew what was happening, she had closed the distance between us, grabbed me by the neck, and thrown me across the room. I crashed into a few computer panels and fell limply to the floor. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t made of Jill and the impact pretty much knocked all my vitality out of my body as I struggled to get up.

Illumina turned casually to the Regia Solis control panel and stopped the satellite before turning back to me. “I’m going to make you suffer until I learn what you did. And then you’ll suffer some more.”

She started walking toward me again when I heard Claire’s voice, screaming from the entrance. “Cover your head!”

I obeyed and Claire appeared, pointing her rocket launcher at Illumina, and said, “You _lose_ , little girl!”

The rocket flew directly into Illumina and the explosion rent the room, knocking even more wind out of me. I looked up at the Regia Solis control, hoping Claire hadn’t destroyed it, and then turned to see Illumina stand up, seemingly no worse for wear, glaring at Claire.

“You need to go!” I shouted. Claire hesitated and Illumina leapt through the air toward her. She barely managed to get out of the way.

“I’ll be back!” Claire said, and disappeared back out of the room. Illumina turned back to me, snarling.

“I’ll deal with you later. Stay for me, will you?” She turned to one of the metal containers, picked it up, and tossed it at me. It crashed onto my left foot and I fell back down, screaming in pain. She smiled sadistically at me, then went after Claire.

“What’s going on in there?!” Dr. Chambers’s desperate voice came over the radio.

“She stopped the satellite,” I croaked after I caught my breath. “I need to restart it. Somehow.”

“It’s not worth it! Get out of there!”

I debated whether to tell her that I couldn’t exactly move at the moment and decided against it. I weakly pushed at the metal container, trying to get it off my foot. It didn’t budge. No. I needed to do this, no matter what. I reached again, grabbing it, and lifted as hard as I could, straining against it and my own frailty, and managed to move it just enough to pull myself free. My ankle sent all sorts of pain through my body as I pulled it out and I screamed again. I was starting to feel lightheaded.

Turning toward the control panel, I stretched my right arm in front of me and pulled my lower body forward. Then my left arm. My right again. Every centimeter of my body protested. The lightheadedness intensified. As I crawled, my mind drifted to Daisy – she’d said I inspired her, after which she proceeded to fight her way through 5 years of college and into medical school though sheer determination. If she could do that, I could crawl a few feet.

Another step. High school seemed to be on my mind now. The trio, taking charge, guiding us through Terragrigia, running into Myrtle, unhesitatingly attacking her to get us past her – if they had such tenacity, I could crawl a few feet.

I noticed my right hand was bleeding. Perhaps I had exerted more force than I realized when I was pushing that metal container. I must look like such a sorry case, I thought to myself. I actually had played with the idea of working out more when I got recruited into the DSO. I probably should’ve actually done that.

I was almost there. I hoisted myself up, looked around the panel, and spoke into the radio. “Alright, guys, you have 5 minutes. I’m re-arming the satellite.”

Dr. Chambers responded immediately. “What’s your status? Why haven’t you gotten out of there yet?”

“I can’t walk,” I said, finally. “I’m going to slow you all down if I try. Focus on evacuating the wounded. You’ve got to hurry – you have only 5 minutes.”

I didn’t hear a response and slumped back onto the ground, leaning against the panels. I let my body relax – as much as it could, anyway, with all the pain in it, and let my mind drift.

Spring 1998. _“Hey, what’re you doing for summer?”_

_“I’m doing an internship. At a research lab in Raccoon City.”_

_“…You are_ such _a nerd. Where’s Raccoon City, anyway?”_

_“I…uhh, I should probably look that up.”_

I looked around me again, at the ruined panels blown apart by the explosion, at the fallen metal container that Illumina had thrown at me, and closed my eyes.

Summer 2001. _“Alright, you can use this bow._ Don’t _dry-fire it. Never,_ ever _dry-fire a bow.”_

Summer 2005. _“So how was graduation?”_

_“It was really nice! I…I mean, it’s probably meaningless in the long term, but –“_

_“It doesn’t matter – you finished a stage in your life, and you should be proud._ I’m _proud of you.”_

 _“…Thank you. So much. Congratulations on your graduation too…_ Doctor _Chambers. If congratulations from a high school student means anything, haha…”_

 _“It does mean a lot to me. And you’re a high school_ graduate _now.”_

My thoughts settled on Dr. Chambers. She was so intelligent she’d figured out all the genes and alleles that would allow Progenitor to affect a host in a controlled manner, and she’d used that knowledge to save the world from the virus that had destroyed so many people’s lives. “I’m blessed,” I whispered into the void. “You taught me so much…”

I heard footsteps. I opened my eyes wearily – Illumina was returning. How was I doing to stop her this time? I tried to force my mind to work.

Dr. Chambers burst into view and a jolt of horror shot through my chest, waking me up. She ran toward me and I shook my head at her.

“No…no…what are you doing here?”

“What kind of girlfriend would I be if I left you here?”

I shook my head again, tears forming in my eyes, my voice cracking. “A smart one.”

“Well, I can’t be the smart one _all_ the time, now can I?”

I just stared at her. “Heads up,” she said. “I ran into Claire on the way here. I distracted Illumina. She’ll be following me in here.”

I looked behind her and, as if on cue, Illumina appeared. She looked disheveled, but more furious than ever. Dr. Chambers turned and reached toward me. I thought she was going to grab my gun and I began to tell her that Illumina had knocked it from me when she threw me across the room, but she grabbed my radio instead. She then proceeded to throw it at Illumina, who slapped it to the side. Even though her gesture seemed so light, the radio slammed against the wall and shattered.

Dr. Chambers calmly pulled out her own radio and did the same. This time Illumina stepped back and crushed it under her heel. I didn’t question her. _She_ knew what she was doing, even if I didn’t.

She then reached into her pouch and pulled out a glass bottle. Illumina smirked. “And what is that?”

“It’s a Molotov cocktail,” Dr. Chambers said. She threw it directly at Illumina and the bottle shattered on the ground directly in front of her. I knew it wasn’t a Molotov cocktail – it had no wick and Dr. Chambers hadn’t bothered lighting it with anything. Instead, a white gaseous cloud exploded out of the bottle and quickly filled the room. I continued breathing normally – I don’t think I could’ve held my breath even if I needed to – but felt nothing untoward.

Without missing a beat, Dr. Chambers drew her gun and opened fire. Illumina raised her hand to block the bullet again – and screamed as the bullet ripped through her palm. Dr. Chambers fired again and she staggered back, her face contorted in surprise, confusion, and pain. One more bullet, right into her head, and Illumina crashed to the ground, struggling to rise. I stared in amazement, but Dr. Chambers hoisted me up and I leaned against her.

“We don’t have much time,” she said. “We need to get to the hangar. Let’s go!”

I held onto her, hoping I wasn’t holding too tightly. Then again, she was holding my arm in a death-grip, so maybe it was okay. Even though I was leaning against her, each step brought new agony to my ankle. I just tried to focus on taking one more step as we continued down the hallways, toward the hangar. I hadn’t gotten the chance to look at the timer when we’d left the control room. I could only hope we had enough time to leave.

I suddenly heard a loud crash and a scream behind us. “Don’t look back. Just keep moving,” Dr. Chambers said. I did as she said.

The hangar came into view. The large bulkhead was now open and both planes were on fire. Claire had done a great job, I saw. Dr. Chambers guided us around the hangar, avoiding the flames, and we rushed outside. Behind us, I heard Illumina closing the distance. On the runway, I saw a lone helicopter. Claire was on it, screaming at us to hurry. I moved as quickly as I possibly could, fighting through the pain with gritted teeth, knowing if I slowed, I would be dooming Dr. Chambers. Footsteps – rapid, uncoordinated, and angry – behind us only served to encourage me.

We reached the helicopter and Claire grabbed me, pulling me in, as Dr. Chambers herself clambered on. I looked back out and Illumina was running toward us, her body burned and bloody, screaming in unbridled rage. Dr. Chambers pulled out her gun again and fired at her as the helicopter took off, slowing her down – and then the city lit up.

Illumina stumbled on the ground and began glowing with fire. She let out one last unearthly scream and disintegrated as the Regia Solis shone its full light onto Terragrigia for the second time. I watched the city burn and crumble as I leaned against Dr. Chambers’s leg, my left hand resting limply on her booted feet. Presently I turned to Claire.

“So, Claire.”

“Huh?”

“You’re still in charge of TerraSave, right? I’m just thinking…the Society of the Phoenix could use some more grants. Seeing how I just…destroyed everything they’ve been trying to do for the last 10 years.”

I fought a smile while she stared at me. I lost. She gave me an annoyed look and turned up at Dr. Chambers. “Is he always like that?”

“Yes,” Dr. Chambers said, with a mixture of laughter and tears. “Yes, he is.” I turned to look at her and let myself pass out, my head on her lap, cradled in her arms.

**Epilogue (Rebecca)** , **July 2016**

I sank into the chair, lazily looking out across the street from the porch as I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the news. President Kaldwin was on the campaign trail again, discussing how her administration had seen the bioterrorist organization, the Family, destroyed. She didn’t give any details, of course, and the world would never know what we did over those few days one year ago.

To the people outside the DSO, the BSAA had discovered the Family’s bases in Alaska, Australia, and Terragrigia and had hit them hard. In the last assault, the Family’s leader had fallen, and Illumina had taken such absolute control over the Family that her death utterly crumbled what remaining power base the Family had. They would pull no more puppet strings.

To the members of the Family, their leader had fallen and the BSAA had stopped her ultimate plan. Perhaps the BSAA had destroyed and sabotaged her virus-deploying missiles. Perhaps Illumina had simply made a mistake. All they knew was that, somehow, the missiles launched from the Alaska plane did nothing, as did those from the Australia one.

Only those in the DSO knew that we’d gone so far beyond stopping the Family’s plans – that, in one daring and desperate strike, we’d rendered powerless the virus Umbrella unleashed upon the world in 1998 and all of its past and future derivatives. Bioterrorists seeking to use any of Umbrella’s viruses in the black market would take much time before they realized all of it was now incapable of infecting anyone. Ozwell Spencer had dreamed of a world with enhanced genetics. We’d ironically fulfilled his wish…without the genocide.

And even within the DSO, only 2 of us knew that I had unlocked the genetic secret to Progenitor and had used that to destroy Illumina. I’d covered my tracks as best I could and, despite this, I would spend a few days in fear that someone would find out. Nothing ever happened and, in fact, President Kaldwin soon took the DSO “off duty,” allowing all non-full-time field agents to leave until the presidency needed to call upon everyone again.

As for us? My boyfriend recovered and “miraculously awoke from a coma” to return to school. He finished his doctoral degree soon after and we went on a trip. We went to Europe and traveled through the scenic countryside by train. We visited historic museums celebrating all sorts of history and toured cities both big and small, old and new. We stopped by Spain and stayed at a castle. We took a cruise down to Africa and toured the savannah. We traveled to East Asia before coming home, to this quiet town in the Midwestern United States. Our lives were remarkably uneventful afterward. Sometimes we still got nightmares of new biohazards or terrorists or past events going in horribly different directions from what we’d experienced. But because of what we’d done, we would always awaken, and our nightmares remained in our dreams, rather than in the world around us.


End file.
